Reeling In Time with Fish Tales. Brian E. Smith
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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