The Haunting Part 2

[king fisher]

    Late July 1977.  I was fishing a place close to my house called Rock Creek.  There was a bridge over the creek where my mother would drop me off in the morning, and would pick me back up in the evening.  Down stream of the bridge there were a couple hundred yards of riffles, then it opened up to what was basically a small lake.  I could catch small mouth in the riffles, and large mouth in the calm water.  When the bass fishing was slow I would sit in one spot fishing worms and catch trout, bluegill and bullheads.

     I fished most of the day with worms catching a few of everything.  Around 4:00 in the afternoon, the wind started to blow, and some clouds moved in.  This was the day I had been waiting for.  After 3 weeks of hot weather, a front was finally moving in.

     I cut the bobber and worm rig off of my solid fiberglass rod with trusty Zebco 33 and tied on a black and yellow Cotten Cordel Spring killer spinnerbait to the 8 pound stren that came with the reel.  I started walking and casting parallel to the north shore, where I had most of my luck for bass in the past.  I worked my way to a place where there was the only log in the whole stretch of river.  Crawling the spinnerbait over the log I landed to 3.5 pound bass.  The bite was on.  After wearing that place out I started working my way back to the bridge.  There were a couple points I liked to cast from and would hold the rod as far out to the side and walk the bank trolling the spinnerbait until I got to the points where I would make a few casts than walk troll my way down the bank to the next point.  While walking along I got a hit, and landed my PB that held the title until just three weeks ago.  By the time I had worked my way to where the riffles flowed in to the open part of the creek, my mom had got to the bridge and was honking the horn.  Time to leave.  Just my luck, best day of fishing ever and she came early.

     I wasn't finished yet, I had a plan.  I laid my rod, down and gathered up my other gear( tackle box, 22, water jug, lunch pack, stringer of fish, )  and took the gear to the car.  I then told my mom I couldn't carry everything at once and had to go back and get my rod and couple other things.  She said to hurry because she had something she had to do.  Of course I had to make a few casts when I went to get my rod.  My Mom saw this and was not happy.  She started to honk the horn and yell, so I knew I only had a couple more casts if I wanted to ever go fishing again.  Of course the monster of  Rock Creek hit my spinner bait.  I played it for what seemed like forever to both me and my mother.  By then my moms threats were starting to scare me as much as loosing the fish of a lifetime was.  I tried to horse the fish on to shore and broke the line.  The bass was tired and swam off so slow, I jumped in and tried to grab it.   The desperate play didn't work, all I got was wet.  The PB I caught that day was 5.5 pounds, and the one that got away must have been two pounds bigger.  That fish will haunt me for the rest of my life. 

      My Mom was no longer mad after a few days, and I was able to go fishing many more times that summer.  I had some good days, but nothing like that one stormy evening when all the fish I hooked were big, and the biggest of all slowly swam away.  I still go back and fish that place at least once a year.  Nothing much has changed.  Different ranchers cows are now in the pasture, and the water is much cleaner.  The new owner of the land doesn't let me drive through the pasture to the creek, so I'm back to hiking down from the bridge.  I catch more brown trout and small mouth than large mouth now.  I always make sure I make a few casts standing on the same rock where I lost the fish of a lifetime.  Sure is nice that some things don't change.