Big Bass Stories!

[FloridaFishinFool]

Reminder, this is an open thread for anyone to post any big bass stories- true or not! So let's hear them!

 

I love big bass stories! It does not matter when or where or how, just the details of the whoppers! The ones that got away or, stories about the big bass you've caught or, seen caught by others!

 

For me, I am all about the details, so I tend to be a bit wordy, but I try and cover the details as best as I can to give a more complete overall picture to the story.

 

I have never told this story online before now. But I think this forum is the right place to share it and now is as good a time as any...

 

In order for me to tell this story in a more complete form, I'll have to start with the background information and it will all tie back in together later on...

 

First, let me describe the location, and I prefer to keep the name of this lake out of this story to further protect it as if I were a home owner there- which I am not, but I wish! 

 

Here in central Florida we have thousands of great bass fishing lakes, ponds, and rivers and swamps, and even over-sized puddles with ten pound bass in them, but they are not all the same.

 

Some lakes are better than others. No doubt about this.

 

So this story is about one lake in a chain of lakes that is very protected by the people who live around it and try and keep it shut off from the outside world- usually very successfully too, but there are times when legally they can't keep others out.

 

So for most people who fish this one great lake you either have to live on the lake or, know someone who does and get permission to fish it. I was one of the few outsiders who knows people living on the lake and had no problems getting permission to fish with only one rule to follow- I was asked to practice catch and release only and take no fish from the lake. I agreed.

 

This lake is spring fed and has a peninsula cutting through the northern third of the lake creating one large Southern side with cattails and lily pad expanses all around the lake with clean clear open deep water, while the smaller northern side of this lake is more like an over-sized pond, shallower, with a few deep holes and lily pads everywhere with only a little bit of open water through the middle.

 

If I were to die and go to bass fishing heaven, this lake would be it. Water so clean and clear I have drank from it before. Just an ideal bass fishing lake.

 

The people I know on this lake are the leaders of their homeowners association so they know every single home owner on the lake and have been the leaders in caring for this lake, the water levels and water quality issues over many years and decades.

 

This lake is known to produce big bass. The lake record is just over 16 pounds, but recently a 17 pounder was found dead in the lake and weighed and buried by one of the residents- I was just told this last week. At least ten home owners on this lake all have double digit big bass from this lake hanging on their walls for display.

 

There are no boat ramps on this lake. So for all the years I have been allowed to fish it, I have had to use the home owner's canoe which is fine with me as I enjoy canoeing.

 

Unfortunately for the homeowners who religiously protect this lake from intruding outsiders, I have come to learn there are actually two locations around this lake that are "public access" points for those who know about them. One is so overgrown it is now completely inaccessible, and the other... lips are zipped!

 

(This is another reason why I choose to not mention the name of this lake) My loyalties are to my long time friends who live on the lake and I would not want to see a post like this one cause problems in having new bass fishermen show up there angering the home owners because someone who does have permission to fish it is telling the whole world how great it is! I can't let that happen. And there is one other bass fisherman on this site who does know this location and I hope he will keep it secret too!

 

Now that I have somewhat described the location for this story, I need to get into bass fishing philosophy a little bit.

 

I have fished for bass since I was 7 or 8 years old with my dad. I am now 50, so that is more than 40 years of bass fishing experience with 98% of it right here in Florida.

 

I love to catch big bass like everyone else, but I do not focus on big bass. If I were to make DD bass my priority I might catch more of them, but I would also be catching fewer bass. So over the years I have moved to smaller lure sizes so I can catch more fish. I enjoy the active smaller bass and their hard hits and how they like to brawl with me and I even like to make them jump a few times and if they shake the hook I am ok with it. Landing them is not important to me. I just enjoy fishing and want to catch as many as I can- even if it is a ton of smaller bass rather than the occasional lunker.

 

And now on to the story... and this is a true story.

 

Most of the time I fished on this great lake I was the only person fishing it. Most of the home owners did not have bass boats or ski boats because this lake is not super large- only a couple hundred acres at best. So most home owners had small canoes and jon boats for their personal water craft, with one or two pontoon boats and a few small sailboats and an occasional jet ski. So fishing pressure is non-existent on this lake as was water skiing. A nice quiet lake I had all to myself! Could not get any better than that.

 

So one fine summer afternoon I was moving the canoe deeper into the north side of this lake and I saw an old man sitting in what appeared to be an over-sized bath tub. He had no motor on it and one small paddle he used to paddle around with as he fished no more than 50 to 100 yards out from his access point along side a road he parked on.

 

I usually kept the canoe in clear water just outside of the lily pads as trying to paddle a canoe all by myself into or through lily pads was difficult to say the least, so I concentrated along the clear edges of lily pads, and I noticed the bath tub fisherman was buried back up in the lily pads as I inched myself closer to his position.

 

Trying to be friendly I asked him how he was doing and he pulled straight up out of the water as much of his stringer of dying bass he could lift to show me more than a dozen lunker bass that he was taking home to eat. Some of those bass were easy 7 to 8 pounders, some 5's and 4's but nothing smaller. No doubt this guy was ticking off the land owners who would have liked to have this guy thrown off the lake and kept out permanently. But legally they could not do it since there was two public access points this guy knew about and utilized.

 

Needless to say it, but I was stunned by this guy's success at catching the bigger sized bass and so my next obvious question was to ask him how he was doing it. And that is where he began to clam up and get a little more gruff with me.

 

I guess he began to think I was one of those unhappy land owners who wanted him gone and he was not willing to share with me his bass fishing secrets. So I decided to fish near him and just watch what he was doing. I could see that he was basically spraying something on his lures down inside his boat out of view and he was tossing top water lures and slowly twitching them through the lily pads.

 

He was annoyed I was too close to him sitting over top of the deep hole and messing up his fishing action and he decided to paddle further away from me since I was not moving further away from him. So to get a better understanding of what this guy was doing I decided I would check him out another way.

 

So to make him happy I paddled the canoe around to the South side of the peninsula and I beached the boat on my friend's daughter's land and left all my fishing stuff right there in the canoe and just parked it. I walked over to my friend's house facing the north side of the lake on the peninsula and went inside the house to watch this guy fish through the large window in the living room as I talked with my buddy about this bass fishing intruder to their lake.

 

He brought out a pair of binoculars so I could see better up close what this guy was doing to catch those big bass and I was amazed at how he did it since our bass fishing philosophies were polar opposites.

 

I had no idea, but I was looking at a very experienced old timer bass fisherman who was quite literally the pied piper of bass fishing.

 

Now that he thought I had disappeared around the bend to fish the South side of the lake, that old man had no idea I was actually now spying on him for the fun of it- and to learn.

 

I could now see that he was spraying something on his lures in a blue and yellow spray can, but I could not see what it was, only the color of it.

 

I could now see how he was literally calling the big bass to him with his slow ever so patient technique of casting out a large 4 or 5 inch red and white top water plug he ever so slowly twitched through the lily pads. He would let it sit for long periods and just twitch it in place not trying to retrieve it, only make it look alive and edible to the fish.

 

You could see the wake of a big bass zeroing in on his lure as it sped through the lily pads towards his lure.

 

He sat ever so quietly in one spot and literally called the big bass to him like calling a dog or something.

 

I had never seen anything like this in my life. But obviously it was working for this old man as his stringer of big bass was proof of it.

 

His three or four hours of bass fishing like this brought him probably close to 40 or 50 pounds of fresh fish food out of this lake on this afternoon.

 

So as the sun went down I watched as this old guy tried to paddle his bath tub like boat out of the lily pads and back to his truck parked along side the road. It was kind of funny to watch as he paddled on one side the small boat would spin the other way and he would then paddle on the other side and the small boat would spin back this way and inch by inch he paddled his way out of there.

 

I decided to walk down to where his truck was and offer to help him load up his small boat so I could take a better look at his equipment up close.

 

And this was when I discovered the old man was using WD-40 to spray on his lures as his scent attractant!!! Seriously? WD-40? A petroleum lubricant? But yes, that is what the yellow and blue can was! And his top water plugs were the 4 inch and 5 inch red and white balsa lures he had been using for 50 years or more.

 

If I had annoyed him on the lake, he was now happy to have help getting loaded up once he found out I was not a land owner angry at him for taking fish from the lake. And now he was happy to share his fishing secret with me.

 

I was just stunned by his stringer of big bass. And I was equally stunned by his method of catching them and how completely different our bass fishing philosophies were- and still are- as I simply do not have the patience that old man showed me on that day nearly 30 years ago as he called the big bass to him rather than him going after them.

 

I knew I had met a special bass fisherman and that I was open-minded enough to pay close attention to every detail of what he was doing that day to the point of stopping my own afternoon of bass fishing just to take the time to spy on him for his technique.

 

On that day I learned something about bass fishing I had never known or even considered because I go after the fish. I don't have the patience to sit in one spot and call the fish to me like he did.

 

Well, that old man is now probably long since deceased and passed on as we do not see him on the lake any more, but I will never forget what he taught me, though I may never use it or fish like he did, I will always remember him and what I learned from him, but the WD-40 still has me shaking my head in disbelief and I would not have believed it if I had not seen it for myself. I even went out and bought some of the exact same lures he was using to call in those big bass and to this day I still have them in my tackle box, but I do not have the patience to use them like he did.

 

***The following image was taken from shore on the north side of the peninsula of this great lake. This is the exact location for the story told above. Behind me is the house from which I spied on this old timer with binoculars so I could watch and learn his technique. The lily pads on this side are where he had his little boat and on the right side you can barely make out a white gallon jug floating over an irrigation intake pipe that also marks one of the deepest holes on this side of the lake known to hold big bass. And I believe that this hole is from where the pied piper was calling out for the big bass to come to him from because as I watched the wake of the bass speeding through the lily pads it was from the direction of this hole through the lily pads towards him and his twitching topwater lure:

 

 

Here is an example of the type of lure he was using:

 

 

 

[a1712]

I won't give the name of the Lake up, but it's going to cost you a Sushi dinner.   Brian.

[BassinLou]

Great story. I know people got to eat. I also understand homeowners trying to protect the jewel of a lake they live on. With today's fishing regulations for bass. He could have only kept one of those big ones. The rest of the stringer, based on the sizes you described are past the legal limit. You are fortunate to have accessibility to fish that lake. I know I would love to fish there. 

[Senko lover]

 

"For me, I am all about the details, so I tend to be a bit wordy, but I try and cover the details as best as I can to give a more complete overall picture to the story."

Holy cow, you weren't kidding! Great story.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[FloridaFishinFool]

I won't give the name of the Lake up, but it's going to cost you a Sushi dinner.   Brian.

 

A sushi dinner huh? OK, done deal. I was kind of hoping the sushi and sake would be the fishing bet... you know, he who catches the most bass gets the free dinner from the loser, and he who catches the biggest bass gets his sake bought by the loser. This way, each fisherman can actually win something- maybe!

 

But in response to a PM asking about the rest of the lake, here are a few photos of the same lake showing some of the larger South side of the lake, the big hole surrounded by floating grass at the end of the peninsula and a couple more looking into the smaller north side where the story above took place-

 

This shot is looking at the eastern shore of the south side of the lake looking towards the woods and orange grove beyond the tree line there:

 

 

This next image is looking due South along the eastern shoreline of the larger South side of the lake- count how many houses you see on the lake! None on this side! Just a gorgeous natural spring fed crystal clear clean Florida lake!

 

Do you see the lily pads way up ahead of me in the photo? I am sitting in shallow water where I snapped this photo and it is shallow 8 feet or less all the way out to those lily pads, and just past them you can barely see the open clear water of the main body of the lake and I am heading in that direction for some fishing action.

 

 

This next image was taken looking at the lake's outflow canal which is hidden by all the trees and brush. I could cut my way through that stuff and reach another lake back in there- two in fact one after another in this chain of lakes.

 

This outflow canal location is right at the tip of the peninsula in the lake and is the dividing center line between the smaller north side and larger South side of the lake.

 

This is a nice deep hole surrounded on one side by thick floating grass as seen in the photo, and just out of view to the north or left side of this photo is a wide flat expanse of lily pads between two deep holes. Just an awesome bass fishing environment on this "private" lake.

 

 

In the next two images I am sitting in the canoe on the eastern shore of the lake snapping these photos looking to the west out over the main body of the lake on the South side-

 

 

Now you can see some of the houses on the lake on the NW side, and to my right is the peninsula. Look at all that wide expanse of lily pads next to the clean clear deep waters to the left. This is big bass heaven on earth!

 

 

As it is getting dark I have to take the canoe back around the peninsula to the smaller northern side and this is what it looks like after rounding the tip of the peninsula heading back into the north side where the story above took place-

 

[FloridaFishinFool]

Great story. I know people got to eat. I also understand homeowners trying to protect the jewel of a lake they live on. With today's fishing regulations for bass. He could have only kept one of those big ones. The rest of the stringer, based on the sizes you described are past the legal limit. You are fortunate to have accessibility to fish that lake. I know I would love to fish there. 

 

You are so right about the limits on bass today, but this story of the pied piper bass fisherman took place back in the late 1980's more than 25 years ago. I wonder what the law was then on limits?

 

But, being that this is a private lake, you never ever see any game wardens anywhere near this lake. Not even a remote chance of it. So who's to stop the old guy from taking what he wanted out of the lake?

 

The land owners knew he was harvesting fish out of the lake, but they also knew he was able to access it legally and there was absolutely nothing they could do but whine and complain about it- which they most definitely did.

 

But truthfully, that man did not hurt the fish population in this lake one iota!

 

I have fished a lot of Florida lakes, but there are only a few I keep coming back to over and over again and this is one of them- I think because it is so clean and no fishing pressure to compete with at all. And also because it is like just minutes down the road too.

 

The only way I ever got on this lake was because of a chance meeting at a local college. I was renting a condo while in college and had a room to rent and the fella who answered my room for rent ad was the son of the land owner who lives on the peninsula in the middle of this lake. And his sister and her husband bought a house on the South side of the peninsula, bulldozed the old house, and built themselves a brand new house overlooking the larger South side. The view above looking straight down that eastern shore is what they get to look at everyday from their house. I wish it were me! But to live on this lake and on that peninsula would cost for starters probably about a half million dollars and up. Way out of my league for sure! And the people who live on this lake have the means to protect its serenity from outsiders for the most part. Virtually no outsiders access this lake for fishing. I am one of the very few who keeps coming back for more and loving every minute of it!

[FloridaFishinFool]

As promised, since I did not reveal the name of the lake above I promised a fellow fisherman I would tell some stories on some places I can reveal the location to...

 

And to make a longer story shorter, I'll just say my dad worked at the old Naval Training Center in Orlando, and on the base was a lake protected by the federal government from the general public. The only people who could access the lake were those who could gain access to the military base. So it was apparently an ideal lake for studying bass.

 

***The following story is only hearsay. I have absolutely no proof any of it is true as I have never bothered to check any of it out.

 

One day back in the late 1980's my father came home from work and told me that he had heard rumors from some Navy guys fishing on the dock of Lake Baldwin that the state of Florida had electro-shocked up out of the lake on base some record sized bass- 3 of them to be exact.

 

The story goes that at the time, the state of Florida was doing some bass research on Lake Baldwin with radio transmitters being put onto fish electro-shocked out of the lake. All different size fish were being tagged and fitted with the radio transmitters. Supposedly the state was researching bass movements and feeding habits and that this type of data was being put into computers that could generate some readable graphs or mapped information that would inform us humans about where certain size bass range or rest at, from small bass all the way up to lunkers and where and when they moved around and hunted for food, etc.

 

So the story goes that some Navy guys were on the dock fishing one fine afternoon when some of those electro-shocked bass were brought in from the lake to the dock for weighing, measuring, tagging, and outfitting with the radio transmitters, and that 3 of the bass brought to the dock were in fact record sized bass. Now what is unclear to me is whether or not we are talking about 3 fish that beat the known state record fish at the time or, whether or not those 3 fish exceeded the world record size bass. To this day I have no idea. But it was an exciting story to hear way back then.

 

Just keep in mind some Navy guys on the docks brought this information back to others on the Navy base and spread the story and rumors all over the base. And that is how my father heard it and brought the story home to me. It could be true, and it could be a bunch of BS, but it makes for a good ole' big bass story just the same.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Training_Center_Orlando

 

"The Navy closed the facility in the Fall of 1999 and the property was sold to the City of Orlando, which in turn sold it to a private development company. The site was fully redeveloped and is known today as Baldwin Park."

 

Today Lake Baldwin has a public boat ramp and is a no-motor lake over 10HP:

 

Lake Baldwin (225 acres)

"Located next to Baldwin Park in east Orlando, the lake has a small boat ramp located on the south shore.  However, boats with motors greater than 10 H.P. have to abide by a "no wake" restriction.  There is some bank fishing via Baldwin Park but the best fishing is done by a boat.  Catch rates for largemouth bass are some of the highest in Orlando; most bass caught are less than 2 lbs.  Fish the edges of the submersed vegetation with finesse fishing techniques for consistent bass action."

 

Today there is a park all the way around Lake Baldwin and you can shore fish just about the entire lake and canal connecting to Lake Susannah to the South.

 

 

[FloridaFishinFool]

Reminder, this is an open thread for anyone to post any big bass stories- true or not!

 

The big bass stories I love to hate are those stories about people who never fished a day in their lives lucking out on a first time out. I have often wondered if God was just messing with me or what???

 

One big bass story I will never forget really ticked me off big time. I was in college and at that time central Florida was going through a drought. Lake levels were way down. And this one lake I liked to fish on the water levels had dropped so low that all that was left of the lake was the deep holes were now small ponds.

 

And that is where the big bass were holed up at- down at the bottom of those holes. They were like monkeys in a barrel. No where to go, food getting scarce so cannibalism was on! And there I was to take full advantage of this unfortunate situation for the bass turned things in my favor.

 

Back then I was not as experienced at fishing as I am now at 50 and I definitely had a bad case of equipment deficiency. I was 19 years old and still using a zebco closed face reel with 10 pound mono on it. But my favorite rod and reel was a spinning rod and reel.

 

So I took one of my fellow classmates from college out to this dried up lake and I handed him my zebco closed faced reel on an old Abu Garcia fiberglass rod with one of those pistol grip handles on it. I set him up with a weighted rubber worm rigged Texas style and pointed for him to walk down to the left side of the hole and I would work on the right side of the hole for some big bass.

 

This guy had never fished a day in his life. He was so inept with a rod and reel it was funny. He had no clue what he was doing and I had to instruct him every step of the way. So this guy casts it out there and let's it sink to the bottom and I said just reel it very slowly and twitch your tip a little bit and so he tried to follow instructions and then I hear within seconds "hey! I think something is tugging on it!"

 

So I tell him to rear back and set the hook. And within seconds and minutes he is reeling his first bass weighing in somewhere between 5 to 6 pounds. Talk about beginners luck. I did not catch anything anywhere near that size that day. Needless to say it, but I never took him fishing with me again.

 

Something similar to this story happened a couple of years later in my early 20's when I took a fellow co-worker bass fishing with me to a lake neither of us had ever been on before. In fact, old George, and old biker from Pennsylvania that I took with me bass fishing had never bass fished in his life. His only working rod and reel were for salt water. I mean it was heavy gear. A thick heavy rod, and a huge spinning reel on it and 30 plus pound mono fishing line was all he had to fish for bass with. I was thinking to myself he'll never catch anything with that!

 

So we drive down to a well known big bass producing lake just east of downtown Orlando, a lake called Lake Underhill right by the Orlando Executive Airport. Lake Underhill was cut in half by the 408 interstate running right over the middle of the lake with 2 large concrete bridges right through the middle of this lake.

 

So old George and I park the car near the public boat ramp and walk down along the interstate to position ourselves up under those big bridges and fish the rocky embankment in the shade trying to keep out of the hot summer sun.

 

I took two rods and reels with me, the same old zebco 33 closed face reel on the Abu rod with a weighted rubber worm, and my spinning reel with a 3" floating rapala minnow lure. I was in no way prepared for this lake's conditions.

 

Old George and I crossed under the first bridge to reach the open center between the two bridges. I could look down into the clean clear water and see the rocky embankment going down to the bottom of the lake at a 45 degree angle, and in front of me were the big concrete bridge support pylons I was planning on working with my lures. So I move across the open center section closer to the second bridge to put a little distance between myself and old George who was barely into the open section just past the first bridge.

 

So we start fishing. George had a sinking 4 or 5 inch long minnow lure I guess is what he used in salt water already on the huge salt water rod and reel he was using this day. I catch one or two dinks thinking I am doing better than George and that he will never catch a dam thing, but I'm not saying anything about that and we just keep fishing.

 

Old George who had never fished for bass in his life was using some salt water technique of casting out his lure, letting it sink and then rip retrieving the lure up the rocky embankment just over top of the rocks. And he makes this long cast out in front of me, and keep in mind I am holding my rod and reel fishing and watching both of ours, and he makes this long cast across the open section between those two bridges towards a pylon on the second bridge right in front of me, lets it sink down to the dark depths of the lake, and then he starts up with his ripping that lure back in at high speed pulling the rod tip up to the right, lowering it back down still reeling in like a mad man and lifts his rod tip up to the left and back and forth he went and at some point as I am looking down into the water I can see his lure flashing in the sunlight down about 12 feet deep or so and I see this dark torpedo moving at high speed making a loop up the rocky embankment, grab his lure and in one smooth loop up, grab, and back down to the depths with his lure.

 

I look over at George and he is hanging on to that rod with everything he had as that rod is doubled over, the drag on that reel was screaming and George had this huge look of absolutely shock and surprise mixed in with a smile as he tried to stay balanced on top of those rocks holding onto that rod and reel.

 

I am just shaking my head in disbelief as I reel in my lure and put my rod down and watch George fight this big bass trying to not fall in or get pulled in.

 

After a good fight that fish tires out and he reels it in and I am the one who had to reach down and grab that fish and it took both hands while trying to balance standing on top of rocks.

 

I will tell you truthfully we do not know how big that bass was- no scale to weigh it with. But I will say it was the biggest bass I had ever seen caught firsthand in my entire life- then or now or ever. I have never seen anyone catch a bass that big. If I had to guess at its size I'd say probably 12 maybe 13 pounds- maybe more. It was huge. I swear that fish looked like it was 3 feet long- even though it wasn't it sure seemed like it.

 

I'm trying to lift and drag that fish up out of the water and up the rocky embankment to George standing there now with a huge grin on his face and well earned too! I had to use both hands on that fish just to hold it and I hand it to George and well that fishing trip was over.

 

A lot of people would have had a trophy bass like that one mounted and hung on the wall for all time. But not old biker George. No siree, back home he had a wife and 4 or 5 kids running around and old George took that bass home and it was dinner that night.

 

What did I learn from this big bass experience? Well I learned where the big ones were and I got to see firsthand how swift a feeding attack can be and that I needed bigger fishing equipment if I was ever going to catch a bass like that. I have fished for more than 40 years and never come close to what old George did on his very first bass fishing trip in Florida.

 

Today if you were to look into my tackle box I think there are more varieties of rat'l trap type of lures in there than anything else just so I could replicate what old George did on that day. And I have caught some nice bass that way, but never anything like what happened on that day.

 

God is definitely messing with me! And ticking me off too!

 

Today if you look down on this site using google earth satellite imaging, it looks like they have built a nice walkway to get under the bridge where George caught this big bass, and it looks like they have built some sort of a dock in between the bridges too, right over top of the exact spot where George caught this huge bass in between those two bridges.

 

Back then we had to walk along a narrow dirt path overgrown with brush and crawl across rocks to get to the spot we were fishing at.

[fishballer06]

It's funny to read about the WD-40. About 15 years ago, my father and I went on a walleye charter up on Lake Erie. We didn't have a boat suited to go out where the walleyes were, so we had to rent the charter. We experienced the exact same thing. The guide was spraying everything we trolled with WD-40. We couldn't believe it, and we were catching tons of fish. We told him that we didn't believe the WD-40 was making a difference, so he said "You know what, I'll prove it." So the guide reeled in everything that was on the left hand side of the boat, and rerigged every rod with lures that had no WD-40 on them, and we kept on trolling. The right hand side of the boat (the side that used WD-40) out fished the left hand side of the boat probably 5 to 1. It was simply amazing. 

[RSM789]

For those of you who don't want to read the entire first post, here is the Cliff notes version:

 

There is a great private lake in Florida that our author figured out has a public access area.  He has a friend who lives on the lake.  One day he spots an old man fishing on the lake, so he rolls right up on him & basically poaches the spot.  The old man shows him a bunch of fish on a stringer & then gets irritated that with an entire lake to fish, our author has chosen to be within 15 yards of him.  Eventually, the old man moves off, so our author then goes to his friends house to spy on the old man.  Later, under the pretense of helping the old man, our author tries to find out exactly what the old man was using and what kind of scent he had disguised by putting it in a WD-40 bottle.  Without stating it, the author then leads us to believe that he murdered the old man & stole his equipment.

 

The author shows his knack for irony by refusing to reveal the name of the lake in order to keep irritating people off of it.

 

[paul.]

here's a story.  i will keep it short.

 

As he watched the big bass swim back to her cold, deep home, he couldn't help but reflect.  The past hour had been something special, some of the best fishing he'd experienced in a long, long while.  It was shaping up to be a great year.  And it was about time.  Several months ago, he was selling his gear and wondering if he'd ever enjoy fishing again, wondering some days if he'd ever even go again.  But now, smiling as he watched her disappear into the depths, things just felt right again.  His friends were back in the boat with him.

 

He started to fire another cast into the deep brushpile that had just given up three six pounders in short order, certain there had to be at least one more good fish in there.  But then in a move that would make no sense to anyone but him, the angler lowered his rod, twisted the handle on the trolling motor and headed back to shore.  He'd save that one for next time.  Because for the first time in a long time, he knew there would be a next time.  And it would be fun.

[roadwarrior]

Good to see you back.

 

-Kent