Читать книгу Reeling In Time with Fish Tales - Brian E. Smith - Страница 10

In the cover of darkness, our headlights poked a hole down a short, pure sand passage that for most was unknown; and those who passed before us would have just as soon it be forgotten. I got out of the car with a flashlight and walked the headlights into the black hole. I walked back toward the car, stopped short, and began to use the flashlight beam as a pointer. The U.S. Army had laid down segments of perforated, metal track to allow military vehicles movement across the deep soft sand. Wind-blown sand had covered much of the track and some sections were deep under the sand, caused by the weight of heavy vehicles. Jagged metal ends popped up here and there where heavier trucks had damaged the segment edges. My job was to help Dad keep the car on the track so we wouldn’t be stuck and to avoid the sharp ragged metal edges to keep from popping a tire. The first part of the road was the worst. Once we crested the small hill in the middle, it was easier to coast down to an oak hammock where roots and moisture made the sand firm enough to drive on.

Sequestered under a low blanket of live oak branches and tucked in behind an ancient arrangement of sand dunes, the sunrise appeared, as if someone greater than us simply turned the dimmer up and things slowly began to illuminate. It didn’t take us long to unpack our gear. We had three medium light spinning outfits and two canvas creels. The creels were identical with a multitude of pockets and pouches that were semi-organized with an assortment of lures and fishing paraphernalia. Armed like the platoons of soldiers that had rehearsed warfare amongst these dunes before us, we geared up to assault the fish.

The pond was just down a slope from where we parked. From our vantage point close to one end, you could see all the way across the width of the pond in the light of dawn. If you looked just right, you could see a reflection of light off the water at the far end. Vapor steamed a foot high off the pond, resembling a loose roll of cotton insulation, padding the surface. The pond was an oblong oval with a couple of small sandy points jutting out across from one another, roughly halfway along the length of the pond.

Once we got out from underneath the trees, there was a wide, well-rutted, sandy strip, obviously used as a course during maneuvers. The strip undulated left and right, making its way around the pond with many side trails coming in where two sand dunes dipped down together. Six or eight high struts across the strip got us to a sparse band of coarse clump grasses, scrub oaks, and individual mature pines that naturally fenced the pond. Swathes of young weeping willow trees rimmed much of the shoreline. Their limp branches draped over the water, the longest of which swept the surface in the faint breeze. Where the bank was a bit higher, a big pine and thickets of oaks grew to the water. Subtleties in elevation, sometimes less than a foot, made big changes in the vegetation. By taking notice of the vegetation at the water’s edge, you could tell where the lake gently sloped verses where the bank dropped off to deeper water.

We were there in the midst of spring. The morning air still had crispness to it, yet the mid-day sun was strong enough to make shorts and a T-shirt most comfortable. I was dressed, waiting for such to occur. The air was infused with the fragrance of new growth. The kind of smell you get when your nose is close to a fresh garden salad—a salad with just a hint of pine—breathing tasted good.

Dad and I had developed a routine; he would start fishing his way around the pond to the right, and I would start fishing my way around the pond to the left. We would meet somewhere in the middle on the other side with a, “how’d you do?” Then we’d fish our way back around the pond together in the direction of whoever caught the most fish. We had our own quiet time, and we had shared time. It worked for us.

I always started fishing where rainwater had washed out a part between the willow trees in the near corner of the pond. I stepped in the gully away from the pond. Dad taught me to sneak up on water. It is heartbreaking to anxiously rush in to wet a line, and realize with a boil of water that your haste cost you an opportunity to tangle with a fine, eager fish that was waiting right there at the water’s edge.

At the back of the gully, I crouched down, jabbed the butt of my spare rod into the sand with a Snagless Sally® tied on. The rod in hand had a small Pop-R. Top water fishing at the break of day has, and always will cause a restless sleep the night before. Here I was, living the moment that kept me awake longer than I wished. Fresh eight-pound line ran through the eyes of my rod. I greased the reel two days before the trip. I ran the hooks across a stone yesterday evening during final preparation.

While scoping the situation, I was hoping the puff of wind from right to left wouldn’t make an impact on my cast. New growth had narrowed the free air space between the willow swaths. On the other hand, was I just jittery on the first cast? Hope, anticipation, and apprehension swarmed in my head as I tried to quell my nerves enough to make the cast, without having the fishing line so much as touch anything but clean, fresh air.

From a squat, I flipped my wrist forward. The Pop-R sailed backwards between the willows, trailing loose coils of line. I watched intently. My free hand cupped by the reel spool; line slapping my palm like a feather. A split second before the lure splashed down, I pushed my palm against the spool, stopping any more line from coming off and at the same time, straightening the line that was in the air without recoiling the lure. The line floated gently down, splitting the gap. It was the perfect cast. I was proud of myself. There is far more satisfaction in fishing than merely reeling in a fish.

Concentric circles rippled from the lure fifty feet from the rod tip. I let it rest on the surface until the ripples dissipated. The lure was in open water, next to nothing, floating over a sandy bottom. Four times, I softly frog swam the Pop-R five feet forward by holding the rod with the tip down and rhythmically flicking the tip while taking up the slack with the reel. Work it five feet and let the lure rest, the water still. One more frog swim and the lure came to rest fifteen feet from the bank.

Pinching the line between the thumb and forefinger and Jell-O jiggling the rod tip, I kept the lure stationery but caused it to vibrate like a nervous animal approaching a known ambush point. I stopped; the lure silenced. Long seconds passed. Glug… glug, the popper sounded. Two short, sharp wrist snaps forced the lure ten inches closer in two motions that had water spritzing forward from the concave face of the plug. A prolonged pause, then a subdued four-foot frog-swim brought the lure within ten feet of the sand. I vibrated the Pop-R five seconds or so and stopped. Spiritless, it sat atop the water. Slowly I pulled the lure another foot toward me, ending in a slight flick that sprinkled a few tiny drops of water from the face. I was ready to vibrate the lure again when a brick splash fell from underneath the plug.

I must have hypnotized myself with the lure’s motion, because I didn’t respond to the strike until the line yanked the rod in my hand. The fish set the hook itself. Hooked together, we both jumped in spasm upon realizing it. The bass vaulted in a cinematic brief tail-walk and shuttering headshake with its mouth agape, showing the Pop-R latched in the corner of his mouth. The flared gill plates flashed the brilliant red of the gills behind it with each head twist. Oddly, the belly-flop re-entry was naturally graceful. Before my eyes was a live replay of the slow motion film footage from every bass fishing TV program I’d ever seen on rainy Saturday mornings.

I played for the fish. The fish danced. The fish surged. I dipped. During two moments of stage fright, the fish ran for dark weed cover. I applied as much pressure as I could stomach to bring her back to the limelight. The torrid dance brought us closer to near exhaustion, the music slowed. The explosive moves were now alluring wiggles and flirtatious flips. The final note ended in a captivating, sliding embrace. In a lip lock, I held her up to the sun. Iridescent body scales scattered the low morning light. I cupped her motherly belly in my hand. Translucent fins, trimmed in black, were her lace. She dripped cool water. I looked into her eye. She looked back. She was beautiful. She gave me everything I’d dreamed of last night. Carefully, I laid her down in the pond. Her tail sashayed through my open fingers, taking her back where she belonged.

As I watched her swim away, I noticed something I hadn’t seen from the back of the gully. There, just off the bank, in a foot and a half of water, was a sand saucer, sixteen inches in diameter. She was expecting and had helped make a nursery. I had invaded her nest with my Pop-R. She instinctively tried to kill the intruder like good mamas do.

I stood there, silently feeling good about my decision to give her back. She carried the future. She carried my future fun. I looked back at the nest and she was there, standing guard, in her foxhole.

I took off running through the deep sand to Dad. He wasn’t far away. Panting, I said, “Let’s not keep the pregnant ones! I just let a five-pound girl go. It felt great.”

“I let a big one go already, too, Champ,” Dad said.

“OK,” I smiled, and ran back to my gear.

I picked up my two poles and creel and walked to the next clearing. As I did, I thought about what a great start to the day it was. A perfect cast, good work with the lure, a heart stopping strike, and picturesque moments with a big bass right off the cover of Outdoor Life. I had the best feelings going on inside of me, especially knowing I had given my girl freedom. She freed my spirit. Things come around full circle in life; sometimes you have to wait for it, but that day gratification was instant, thankfully, because I was too young to understand time.

My next stop was a pocket-sized slight up bump of sand between the willows on the near shore width of the pond. My feet felt the lumps of large roots from years ago, before my time where, perhaps, a big pine had been. It may have been destroyed with a lightning strike, and the roots had maintained the elevation stalling the invasion of willows. Regardless of whatever happened in the past, now it was a place to push through and get in a cast.

The casting spot was tight and I found myself draped in a spider’s web of willow branches. Willow branches hung over the first three to four feet of bank. You couldn’t get the angle to cast the lure so it ran parallel to the bank cover. It was a messy place to fish, but sometimes you could pick up a bass just by doing the best you could. In the past, I had tried an array of lures only frustrating myself with line tangles and lure hang-ups. A Snagless Sally® or Texas-rigged worms were the snag free options.

I decided to try a white Snagless Sally® with a gold spinner. It is exciting to watch this lure flashing just under the surface and then disappearing in the black hole of a bass’s mouth. Fan casting from the left to the right, it took until the last cast to the far right, when a small buck bass turned the lights off on the golden spinner blade. A quick animated air dance and I was able to sweep the spring suitor through the veil of limbs. The hook popped out easily. He was back in the pond before actually knowing what happened.

I wanted another top water tussle before the sun got too high, making the top water action fade away like the shadows. There was another cloaked sand lump with limited casting space before the corner of the pond, but I skipped it. Just around the corner was one of my favorite spots to fish.

Forty feet around the corner of the pond stood a massive pine tree on a jut of compacted sand that stuck a dozen feet into the pond. Around the base of the pine was a light scramble of scrub oaks and smilax vines, which grew to the water’s edge. On the northwest side of the pine was an opening two people could stand in. That spot had a lot of shade time. If you couldn’t tell that by the dimness of light, you could certainly tell by the smell and feel of a carpet of damp moss under your feet. The odor would catch you on the approach. A clean, earthy aroma coming up from the ground that added to the outdoor experience more than I realized at the time, because to this day that fragrance takes me back, through the years, to that spot on this big earth.

Coming in through the shade, I didn’t feel as strongly about keeping hidden. I came in slow and crouched a bit, but I didn’t worry about throwing a shadow across the water.

I dropped my creel and laid my pole with the Snagless Sally® over it, such that the reel wouldn’t get any sand in it, some five paces away from the opening. If there was an instrument that could measure the energy vibe coming off me when I stood in the opening, ready to flip that Pop-R into battle, it would be pegged on overload. The shadowed waters were an oily slick calm in the tiny cove. Out beyond the shadows, where the sun struck the water, bits and pieces of vapor snaked upward from the surface. The end of the pond, where I had just fished was now awash in sunlight. The willow leaves, flickering about in a puff of wind, strew sunbeams off their waxy surfaces. The scene, spiced with the flavor of the moss, was primordial.

I flung the Pop-R into the soup, slightly to my left from the ten o’clock position and several feet past the point where the big pine stood. The lure landed in the sun. The sound of the lure hitting the water, changed the mood. I let things get quiet again. A couple of frog-swims and the Pop-R was floating outside the point, close to the bank, five feet from where the shadow line fell. I Jell-O jiggled the lure in place and it looked like someone had slung a two-gallon bucket of water from the left side onto the plug. We were on! The fish and I connected. The bass put on a wildly energetic dance that had an unusual amount of airtime. I had my feet off the ground at times, as well. The fish wore itself out fighting air. The dance was fantastic to watch, but short-lived. It weighed about a pound and half to two pounds. I decided to put that boy on the stringer.

I fan-cast the entire cove with the Pop-R twice after that. Each cast had the same degree of hope and anticipation as the first cast. One cast, along the far right bank, came to a close with a sucking sound from the back end of the lure, followed by a slow angled descent toward open water. I set the hook on an overstuffed blue gill. The fish was a scrappy fighter, using the width of its body against me, no acrobatics to the fight, just a sub-surface, kiddie roller coaster ride. It weighed almost a pound and went on the stringer with my bass.

I had spent a little less than a half hour there, enjoying every minute. In that time, the sun had climbed well above the tree line and the shadows shrunk. The air temperature was comfortable as I collected my gear, the two fish, and moved on to the next spot.

The next spot was actually a collection of spots along a straight forty yard section of pond bank that had a perceptible rise in elevation. If you didn’t notice the big one to two foot uplift, you would certainly notice that the willows were replaced with clump grasses and sparse, gangly scrub oaks along the bank. Furthermore, there was just a thin line of aquatic vegetation growing next to the shore before the sand bottom dropped to four to six feet of water. In the past, I hadn’t caught many bass in this stretch. However, since you had to pass by it anyway, it was worth putting in some speed casting for blue gill as you went along.

The Pop-R had lost its magic in the full light of day, so I changed it out for a Beetle Spin® with a white body and red belly dot. That Beetle Spin®, the size and shape of a safety pin, sporting a tiny silver spinner blade, was a natural bream-killer, which was fantastic in this pond because of the natural balance. There were enough bass and catfish to keep the bream population from exploding into a million runts with at least a third of the bream caught worth keeping. It wasn’t unusual to take a couple of bluegill at, or a bit more than, a pound.

By choosing to use the medium light spinning gear with eight- pound test line, I was able to cast the miniature lure a fair ways, opening up the blue gill action to me. Heavier tackle or bait casting gear was the equivalent of me walking across the sand in shackles. I had learned that the hard way on a previous trip. One broken line ago, and I thought, It will never happen again. I returned with heavy artillery spooled with twenty-pound test. What I got was a frustrating exercise drill around the pond, relearning to pick the right weapon for the job, which made the task a lot more fun.

Pitching the Beetle Spin® out parallel to the bank, it plopped down fifteen to twenty feet off the shore. I’d let it sink to the bottom, and then steadily reeled it at a pace that kept the flash of the blade just visible under the water. Small bream would fly in and knock the lure to one side or the other. Large blue gills simply consumed it. On light tackle, a blue gill is a spirited adversary. I picked up six quality blue gills and many throw backs in that stretch of sand bank before I found myself on a high point of land midway along the length of the pond. From that vantage, I could see Dad working the bank at the far end. We waved at each other.

On the point, I stood a good five feet above the pond on a bluntly triangular sand dune that gently sloped down away from me. The bank was steep; the water dropped off quickly. Inches above the water, a line of wiry bushes clung to the slope with their branches protruding a couple of feet over the pond. Atop the dune, a wild, low thicket of vegetation entangled my feet. If you took a moment to look at the vegetation, a strange growth pattern appeared. You could see how blowing sand groomed the plants back as the wind carried it up the dune.

From where I stood, I had historically caught very few fish, so I saved my casting time and walked down the slope to where the shore and the point joined. There was a small clearing where you could toss a bait, parallel to the wiry bushes going out to the point, then work to the far left down the length of the pond bank from the wedge shaped cove. I started to the right at the wire brush and fan-cast to the left using the Snagless Sally®. A buck bass picked off the lure halfway down. He was a good dancer, but small. Another larger buck bass took the bait on a random cast in the main lake, making my stringer.

I kept glancing to my left while I was fishing the cove. About the ten o’clock position, twenty-five yards down the shore, and thirty or so feet off the bank, a small, weathered fragment of a large stump protruded several inches above the surface. During a drought, I once saw the whole stump. It was perched on a hump of sand not much larger than the stump itself. Sand had eroded from under two sizable prop roots on both the right and left side. The big roots tapered into a snarl of smaller lure grabbing root branches. Except for when it was high and dry, I had always had a big fish encounter at the stump. I had to get there before Dad. A twinge of guilt hit me when I thought that, but I’d deal with it later.

Hot-footing my way to the clearing in front of the stump—I made the clearing myself—I cut the Beetle Spin ® off in stride, stuck it in a small creel pocket, fumbled around for a quarter ounce bullet sinker and worm hook. I had to stop to thread the bullet sinker on the line and tie on the hook. As I was looking down at the hole in the weight, I noticed a black coil by the trunk of a willow tree. When I looked at the coil, the middle opened white and hissed!

Crap! I was flash frozen to the warm sand with a humming bird heart rate, staring at a cottonmouth moccasin that was less than five feet from me. One more step and it would have bit me. Now what? Do I slowly back away? Do I jump backwards? Do I use my fishing poles to scare the snake? Do I call for Dad? Do I kick sand at it and run? If I’m bitten, Mom’s going to have a fit and never let us come back to fish.

My thoughts ran amok; I thought on… I’ll have to use my shirt as a tourniquet to slow the flow of venom. Dad can help me around the pond to the car. He may have to carry me in the deep sand. We’ll have to leave our fishing stuff somewhere in the sand. In the car, we can speed to post headquarters, and they’ll issue an Army helicopter to fly me to a hospital where some Trapper John MD would give me anti-venom and save me. I’ll have a cool scar I can show off the rest of my life!

Then… the snake left. It crawled into the lake. Apparently, my fairytale story was even too much for the snake. Snakes don’t tolerate nonsense.

In my race to fish, I had ignored Dad’s warning to keep an eye out for snakes. The warming sun had brought them out for a spring sunbath. I was the fool that disrupted the snake’s good time. To my left was a big patch of clump grass. I was still motionless as I scanned all around the base of the clump. It was clear. I pivoted about and peed all over it. It felt good. The pressure was gone!

Rooting through the main pouch, I pulled an eight inch June Bug colored Jelly Worm from a plastic bag and rigged it weedless, Texas-style. Quickly glancing left and right for snakes, I slowly rushed into the clearing in front of the stump. My entrance was announced with a boil of water three feet from the bank. I had just spooked a big sow bass propped up on a sand saucer nursery. Taking a deep breath, I realized I was still rattled from the snake, yet anxious to throw the worm toward the stump.

A plastic worm has probably caught more bass than any other lure, but there is something about seeing the strike of any fish. I went with the Snagless Sally® for the first series of casts. Launching the spinner out past the right side of the stump, I started slow reeling the moment the lure got wet. You could see it approaching the stump, wobbling as it came through the jumble of roots. Released from the roots, it flashed a couple more times until it went over where the sand dropped off. A black streak took it to the right. I set the hook. The bass vaulted like the picture on the cover of Bassmaster Magazine.

“Get ’em, Champ!” I heard Dad call out. Between the stump and me, it cut back left, digging deep at an angle to the bank. The head poked above the surface as it fought back toward me. In a crazed headshake, the fish tossed the Snagless Sally® limply into the pond. The fight was over. The fish’s memory had lasted, obviously.

I caught two more fish off that stump. Both were keepers I put one on the stringer. Dad walked up on me with a nice stringer of bass and blue gill. We exchanged how things went on our individual march. I told him about the snake. He told me I did the right thing by not moving.

“Snakes naturally want to escape from danger. Standing still let him do what he wanted to do,” Dad said. I shook my head up and down when needed, acting like that was my plan from the beginning. I didn’t tell him about sprinkling on the grass afterwards.

“Look, son!” He pointed at a big mamma bass suspended over her nest. “Get your worm pole.”

In an effort not to spook her off again, I slow motioned to my pole like a scene from an old Kung Fu movie. I could hear the background music in my head. Standing back away from the bank, I flipped the worm underhand, over the nest. She flinched at the noise, but didn’t move away. I inched the worm into the nest, and let it lay dead center and watched. She swam backwards, tilted down, and picked up the worm in her mouth. I spastically jerked the pole up to set the hook only to hit Dad in the chest with the worm. Worse yet, I had to duck out of the way so it could hit him. Thud was the sound behind me.

“I’m sorry, are you OK?”

Dad was rubbing his chest when he said, “I’m fine, but you have to let her carry the bait off the nest before setting the hook.” She was still there. I worked the worm to the same spot. She picked up the bait. I waited. She moved off the nest.

“Now, Dad?”

“Go ahead.” I jerked and the worm shot between us like a bullet into some clump grass. Once I reeled it in, we saw the back third of the worm was gone. She wasn’t eating the bait, but merely taking out the trash. We both tried everything we had, short of snagging, to catch her, but she wasn’t interested in what we had to offer. She was on duty. You don’t eat on duty. We left her alone.

We walked back the direction Dad had come from, pitching bait in here and there, just talking and walking. Dad made sure to show me where he had found a fish nest. He showed me a working wasp’s nest. It was a big one dangling from a willow limb over the water. After we walked past it, I picked up a pinecone and threw it into the tree. I didn’t hit the nest, but the disturbance caused a buzz of activity that sent Dad and I double-timing across some soft sand.

“Why’d you do that, Champ?” Dad asked breathlessly.

“I don’t know. It was like my arm took over.” We both laughed. The fish were coated in sand we had kicked up. At the next clearing, we rinsed them in the pond.

At the car, we took the fish off the stringers, putting them in a five-gallon bucket that was in the trunk. We split a big bottle of RC Cola Dad had on ice in a small cooler in the back seat. Dad shook the ice from the drink cooler onto the fish in the bucket. Except for the fishing poles, we put all our gear in the trunk and closed it. The fishing rods went in the car.

“Before we leave, Champ, let’s spend a minute to police this area.” The old soldier from yester-year—twenty years of service—needed to clean up behind some reckless recruits. The new soldiers had had a party and left a clutter of empty beer bottles/cans on and around a picnic table. We picked them up, even the big chunks of broken bottles, and put them in a fifty-five-gallon drum that was near the table. I didn’t like having to pick up behind somebody, but it did look much better once we finished. It only took a few minutes to make things right. Dad was happier, though disappointed in the men who left their mess for others to pick up.

He told me, “A real soldier wouldn’t do this.” It was a hint for my lifetime.

On the way home, we stopped at a Burger Doodle and washed up in the restroom. Dad got us a hamburger, fries, and a Coke to go. I told Dad about the snake a couple more times, telling him not to mention it to Mom each time I brought it up. She’d get nervous over any snake and might throw a momma-block on Dad about fishing with me at the pond. She loved us so much, but she didn’t need to know everything. It would be best to omit some trip details for everyone’s good.

I cleaned the fish when we got home. Dad put away the fishing gear. We had fish that night for dinner. It was good. The best taste, for me, came from knowing we had released the best fish we caught back to the pond and not the kitchen.

There, in their pond, they spawned and live everlasting. As far as I know, her great-grand fish await my Pop-R. Fish are far more than food. Thirty some years have passed, and she, the one guarding her nest, still satisfies me. I remain content with the choice I made as a young man. I’ve made the same type of decisions during the years since. It is still good. I’m just as happy releasing a fish as when I ran across the sand to tell my father I let her go. Pure fishing satisfaction doesn’t always end-up passing across the tongue.