Outdoors with Larry Dablemont: Fishing trip on a hot day

People expect us outdoor writers to write about catching fish even when it is hot. So, a week ago I took my boat down to the nearby river above the lake and paddled up to where flowing water was coming in. A favored spot, it was, where I have hauled in some nice bass over the years. And I know what you are thinking—you are thinking you are about to hear a story about a big largemouth splattering the surface and inhaling a silver-sided topwater Rapala lure as it jiggled along, dodging a stick here and a leaf there, creating a wake in the gentle current. 

That lure did exactly that for cast after cast as enticingly perfect as I could make it. A perfect duplicate of an injured minnow. In twenty minutes of that there was nothing. Patient I am not, so I drifted into a big deep eddy where the current swirled and stilled. I tied on a deep running wiggle-wart, a big one, orange and brown like a crawdad. In that deep water, you might imagine me writing about the savage strike I expected, as I knew there were smallmouth lurking there. But no! Not one! 

Nor was there a savage jolt from walleye that I knew was there. There were no strikes from even a little one. Patient, I ain’t! This was aggravating me to no acceptable level. I have fished an hour now; no fish, no strikes, no hang-ups even! I am discouraged but not dissatisfied. After all, I am all by myself on a beautiful stretch of magnificent water as dusk comes. A bullfrog bellows and a white-tailed eagle leaves its perch with flapping wings as I float by. There is peace here and I am at peace at least. It is peaceful, placid and perfect! A great blue heron screeches, a barred owl hoots from a distant sycamore limb upstream.

Downstream there is the splash of a nice bass around a jumble of logs, or maybe a big turtle fell off a log. But you can’t think that way. I am sure it was a hefty bass. I put on one of my favorite jitterbugs, colored like a leopard frog. Bass love leopard frogs! Slowly I move toward the logs in deep water along the mud bank across from the bluff. The cast was perfect. The lure came across the still, dark, perfectly placid, peaceful water, bloop, bloop, bloop, bloop. Then it did it again, ten or twelve more times. 

You would expect a big slab-sided bass to sweep up from the depths and crash the lure savagely. I did too.  None did. And so it is getting dark, and I have been there two hours. Patience? I ain’t got none. It has been a complete failure as a fishing trip—no strikes, no bass, no excuses. But I am at peace and happy.

Actually, I would have been happier with a half dozen bass and just a little less peace. Maybe more happy. I reach for my paddle and downstream a coyote howls. Peace is worth a great deal. You won’t find that in town.  Patience would be worth a great deal too. I don’t have any. Darn heat—darn bass!

This outdoor column goes to many different newspapers in three states. Some of those newspapers only use them on occasion because some cannot use anything I write that is critical of the Department of Conservation and others don’t always have enough space every week. Everything I write goes on a computer site each week. You can therefore read every column and see every photo that goes with it on that computer site: larrydablemontoutdoors. In fact, I think maybe a year or more’s worth of columns are on there right now. 

If your newspaper does use this column regularly and you enjoy reading it, I like to hear from you, but please let your newspaper know as well. Another website shows all my books and past magazines. It is www.larrydablemont.com.