Editor's Log
Electronic Greetings from Yamamoto Central!
January 13, 2009
REALLY Cold Weather, New Year's Day
Guys don’t always do the smart thing. Okay, so guys rarely do the smart thing, at least in the opinion of their wives, and even that miserly percentage drops to zero whenever two guys are involved in the planning, and God forbid if they’re fishing buddies.
That was the basic scenario which led up to me and Son Cliburn being bundled up and hunkered down in a bass boat, making bare steerage speed as we waked our way three miles east across Wahweap Bay from the launch ramp. I should mention that it was long before noon on New Year’s Day, and the temperature was in the low teens.
Hey, get off my back…
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I already pled guilty to our shared case of temporary insanity
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In our defense the good football games were several hours from kickoff
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We’d already seen our share of bowl game parades
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We probably had enough residual New Year’s Eve coursing through our veins to preclude any danger of freeze-up
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And besides, we’d heard that whatever you do on New Year’s Day will set the pace for the entire year.
So duh, we wanted to fish all year so we went fishing. I rest our case! And, since we were already out on what may have been our biggest fool’s errand anyway, when Son asked me what I was gonna throw, naturally I replied, “A topwater, what else?”
Son, being both a scholarly and helpful type, pointed out that the water temp was hovering right at 39 degrees and that no one in their right mind would throw a topwater. Of course, I answered, “Why not? I want to throw topwaters all year so it follows that I need to throw one this morning.”
I was gratified to see the look of sheer admiration on Son’s face as the elegance and bullet-proof nature of my considerable reasoning powers sunk in through the six watch caps he had on his head.
I chose a beautiful little baby bass patterned Michaels (pre-dating the Rico and Sugoi Splash) and fired a cast to the back side of a patch of flooded tumbleweeds. After letting the bait sit for a few moments I gave it a little twitch which generated the smallest of spitting actions. I let the bait sit again, and then repeated the action.
After the third spit Son and I witnessed a miracle. There, swimming upward as if struggling through clear Karo syrup came a chunky little largemouth bass. Though the water was little more than six feet deep it seemed to take forever for the bass to make its way to the surface. But make it he did, finally, and put the chomp on my Michaels – utterly amazing!
When we had finally had enough of the frigid temps, and secure in the belief that we’d proved up on our rights to fish the entire remainder of the year away, Son and I released three nice largemouth from the livewell. All three of the bass had waddled their way up and out of the tumbleweeds in super-slow motion and fallen victim to the wiles of the demon topwater.
So there you go, the cold and colder, the dumb and dumber. From these and other similar experiences over the years I learned this – no matter how good a particular bait may be, the bass absolutely will not come up in the boat to look for it - you’re gonna have to meet ‘em half way. Tie a topwater on and throw it. What do you have to lose?
Good fishin’,
Jerry Puckett