Editor's Log
Electronic Greetings from Yamamoto Central!
September 11, 2008
Fishin’ buddies will do a lot for one another, pretty darn near anything come to think of it. But there are limits, even for the best of partners.
Only a Kid Would
“Clayton, you’ve just got to be patient buddy. Be patient, and trust me; this is going to work out okay, maybe better than okay.” There we were, it wasn’t ten minutes past blastoff and we had the trolling motor down running on 36-volt and were headed back into a cove just up from Callville Bay Marina there at Lake Mead.
It was late summer and my partner and I were fishing a WON Bass Team Championship event as a result of having qualified from the circuit staged on our home lake, another of the desert giants, Arizona and Utah’s Lake Powell. Both Mead and Powell are characterized by their gargantuan size, their amazing depth and the simply incredible clarity of the water in these two reservoirs.
Lots of folks think the water in their home area is clear, and may even want to bet you that they can also see a quarter on the bottom in 15-feet of water at their home lake. But, I defy them to determine whether that quarter is laying there heads or tails as you can at Powell and Mead – now that’s some clear water boys and girls!
Back to the whole team tournament deal; just the drill of qualifying for the championship fish-off based on six local tournaments had proved to be satisfying, very satisfying. You see, because of the sparse population numbers in the areas surrounding the Lake, fishermen at Powell had never enjoyed a team circuit, much less a regular series of events of any type. Sure, several circuits had staged an occasional event, or an odd championship now and then, and BASS even made a stop there back in the late 80’s, but there was never anything regular.
When word of WON’s upcoming team circuit hit the street it was the hot topic over early morning coffee at Stix Market there in Page. To say that smack talk ran rampant would be a gross understatement. All the guys were talking about pairing up, and who could kick whose fanny, etc. The problem, at least in my opinion, was that in about 90% of the cases the teams were made up of guys that each owned a bass boat, effectively cutting the participation levels by half and almost assuring a failure for the fledgling circuit – hogwash!
Back then I was doing about 250+ guide trips a year, plus quite a bit of fun fishing with my sons, ages ten and twelve – I guess you could say I had some amount of familiarity with the tournament waters, but that I also wasn’t really looking for additional boating opportunities at that particular time. However, the way the “guys” were pairing up irritated me…greatly, so I told ‘em so. I told ‘em that they were a bunch of pencil-necked nincompoops and should be pairing up with anyone besides another boater!
Well, they told me to mind my own business; since I wasn’t getting in the tournaments anyway that it was no concern of mine. That’s when I had a flash of brilliance (okay, temporary insanity). I told them they could either play right, get non-boater partners assuring larger tournament fields and a successful circuit, or suffer the consequences - that I would pair up with my twelve-year-old son and kick their fannies. Well, they didn’t, so I had no choice but to load up my son and take my little chicken butt and try to cash the check that my gorilla mouth had written.
Of course, we did cash that gorilla check, or this wouldn’t have been much of a story, would it? Truthfully, it wasn’t that big a deal. I had a great partner. The “big boys” were out there trying to be somebody while Clayton and I just went out fishin’ and managed to catch some fish. Not always (okay rarely) the biggest, but we caught them every time (a fishing guide type of performance), with the predictable results that at the end of the season we were pretty much the top of the heap.
So to return to the action, my partner and I, along with about a hundred other teams from all across the West, showed up to register at the Showboat Casino in Vegas in preparation for a two-day fish-off. During the first pre-fish day Clayton and I found shallow fish early, big ones by early ‘90’s Mead standards, and they were willing to chase. Later in the day when the desert temps soared over the century mark the bigger fish disappeared and action was spotty, even for rats.
In our skull session that night Clayton said we’d have to catch ‘em early to have any shot (told you I had a great partner). I should add that someone, probably Ranger Boats, had put up an extra grand a day for big fish money, an amount which my partner thought would look pretty spiffy in his college account – so we decided to try for it, purposefully.
So, there we were steamrollering down through there at high speed, me with a seven-foot glass rod, 7:1 Daiwa and a half-ounce Yamamoto buzzbait, chartreuse and white, burning that thing as fast as I possibly could, warp factor nine. But that isn’t the good part.
Standing right next to me, and I mean right next to me, was my partner, doing absolutely nothing. He was in the biggest event of his life, he’d been honored the night before as being the youngest qualifier in WON’s history (by quite a bit), he was so excited he could have threaded a Singer sewing machine with it running wide open, and he was doing absolutely nothing.
“Clayton, you’ve just got to be patient buddy. Be patient, and trust me; this is going to work out okay, maybe better than okay.” He just stood there quivering like a bird dog on point, watching my buzzbait intently, spinning rod at the ready, the line already draped over his trigger finger and the 1/8-ounce ball head and 5-inch Yamamoto single-tail grub ready to work their magic.
Midway back to the boat on the third or fourth extra-long cast the buzzbait seemed to rise up, just a smidgen, a sure sign that exactly what we were looking for had indeed happened. Just a split second after that bass turned beneath the bait my partner’s pinpoint cast landed a foot or so behind the unmolested buzzbait.
While the buzzbait was unmolested, the same was not true for the grub. Clayton grunted, his rod bowed over and he was fast onto what proved to be a four-pounder plus. As I slipped the net under his prize I congratulated him on putting a thousand dollars in his college fund.
Before the magic hour was over we managed just one other that morning, it was a solid limit fish but no match for that first one. For the balance of the day we struggled, adding one more squeaker but falling two short of the tournament limit.
But we were proud anyway, particularly my partner as he made his way to the scales with our three fish. It proved to be close, but Clayton’s fish held up for big fish by mere ounces.
On the final morning, if possible (doubtful) my young partner was even more excited than the day before. The previous evening he’d surely set his personal all-time record for hand shaking as our gracious competitors, along with Forrest and Nina Wood, had spared no effort in congratulating him on his fine catch. Day two did not prove to be quite so rewarding however, at least not early on. We worked the same plan as hard as we could go, but to no immediate avail.
But finally, after right at an hour’s effort and in our third small cove, our plan again paid dividends. Clayton scored another thousand dollar bass when another chunk swirled at the buzzbait but just missed. It was about an hour-and-a-half after blastoff and of greatest amazement was that he caught that bass on his very first cast of the morning.
It was a magic time between the two of us, and of course it didn’t do my stock value any harm in Clayton’s eyes, but my admiration for him also maxed out. I was so proud – he’d stood still in the face of what must have been indescribable pressure for him, and then executed perfectly at the moment when it mattered most. Only a kid would, or could.
Once back home and back into the daily grind (yes, poor little me) and as proof positive that no good deed ever truly goes unpunished, it wasn’t much more than a month or so later when Clayton came down the hall one evening to the den where I was sprawled after a hot day “at work” to announce, “Dad, we need to talk”. He leveled me with his best twelve-year-old gaze and said, “Dad, I don’t know exactly how to tell you this…”
“Just trot it out there Slick, you and I always shoot straight,” I urged.
Now his words came spilling out like a dam that had burst, “Dad, I don’t know what you’re going to do but I have to cut you loose. (Ever been fired by a twelve-year-old?) I’m gonna team up with Mr. Cliburn this year (previous to that moment a very close friend), and he has a new boat, and he said the two of us would make a dynamite team, and I just don’t know what you’re gonna do…”
Well, you coulda heard a pin drop. Carefully choosing my words I assured him that while he didn’t, that I did know what I was going to do. I was gonna go down the hall and find me another son for a partner and that he and I were gonna whip everyone again, including him and his traitorous new partner with the fancy new Ranger bass boat.
“Dad, you’ve got it to do,” he said evenly, and we shook hands. But then that’s another story for another day.
Good fishin’
Jerry Puckett