Hooked
into her first small mouth bass, her smile pushes her cheeks clear back
to her ears as her eyes widen and shine like two new silver dollars.
Even if I didn’t catch a fish the rest of the day, that made it all
worth it. There isn’t much that can make you feel better than the
excitement of a 12 year old kid hooking into their first bass; Matracia
weighs 60 times more than the fish—which weighed about a pound and a
half—but you’d think she just hooked a whale!
Without
any further questions or doubts, I realize now that I found the right
Captain for the three of us.
As
if his knowledge of the lake and fish were not enough, Tony instructed
all of us on three different levels-beginner, novice, and expert.
He was able to give instructions to a beginner—a 12-year-old
girl, a novice, an adult lady, and an advanced trout fisherman—all
with positive results.
But
our gilled guide was not going to allow us to reel in our lures without
a fish on the end of them.
If
the bite gets slow, Tony knows where to go.
We
caught a few more and the bite slowed for about ten minutes. The breeze
increased and the water started folding over.
“They’re
moving,” our guru confirmed. As he places a new pinch in his lower
lip-just in front of his gills- he analyzes the weather change as a
fish, then interprets to us in English and makes his next call:
“Reel ‘em in…I have a good spot to go when the water gets like
this.”
After
about a ten-minute ride doing about 50 mph, Tony slows the boat down
somewhere in the middle of the lake. He told us stories of boats
hitting a rock pile just under the surface.
“There
is a rock pile just under the water here. It’s a little harder to
hook’em here cause it’s a little harder to feel’em hitt’n it.”
As we cautiously approached the hidden rock pile our shaman passes on
his Grand Lake wisdom. “A guy came through here one time… thought he
would show off a bit and scare the birds on the water. He hit the rocks
with the bottom of his hull and tore his boat all up right around
here.” Tony then stood up and showed us how the rocks formed a
horseshoe around us. “We’re gonna go up on this end” Tony said, as
he pointed about 20° off the starboard bow. He tossed his firecracker
and showed us a new presentation with the lure, which was much like
using a bubble and a fly for trout. As he reeled it in he popped the tip
just a little bit; about every 5th crank of the reel, more or less. The
effort was meant to tempt them by imitating a wounded baitfish.
Matracia
and Janie were well challenged here, as it was difficult to feel the
hits. I made about ten casts myself while Tony kept proving they were
there as he hooked up on every other cast.
I began to focus more on feel and tested the next tap.
Thinking that I would snag the hook in an underwater branch and
ultimately lose a lure, I soon found out those taps were hungry fish.
The fish in this spot generally ran bigger.
Most were somewhere between 1½ and 2½ pounds.
