Thanks for the Memories
August 7, 2009
Part Two
Click here for Part One
Southwest Washington’s Silver Lake is one of the best bets the Evergreen State has to offer for largemouth bass.
That’s how it was when I first fished there more than 70 years ago. That’s how it still is today. The Heddon Basser was one of the first two lures I used to put many of that lake’s fish in my boat. That lure, as the hand full of old timers who still have one know, still gets more than its share of the lake’s bass. It will, that is, if it’s at the end of the line of someone who knows what to do with it.
If you read Part 1 of these two columns about the Basser, you’re aware I thought it was a mistake for Heddon to drop that fine old lure from its inventory. It was a terrific lure for Silver Lake bass. I know I could go there tomorrow and catch fish with it. I’ll grant you that’s a selfish viewpoint. Evidently it was a sentiment not shared by anglers elsewhere around the country.
I also mentioned in my previous column that my early experience with the Basser taught me what a tremendous difference proper manipulation can make in a lure’s productivity. The original Heddon Basser was a hefty piece of hardware. As I recall it was listed as 5/8th-ounce but I always thought it was a tad heavier.
The lure had a distinctive “V” shaped metal plate held to its face by a couple of small screws. The early Bassers were beautifully made lures with realistic glass eyes and a fishy looking finish. It made a different sound when manipulated than my other early day bass baits.
In the beginning I fished the Basser by just heaving it up to cover and then reeling it back in. Even as a kid I had read enough about bass fishing to realize there were those who used other procedures. I thought some of what I read was just so much nonsense. How wrong I was!
The Basser was a lure that floated at rest and then dove on the retrieve. It was difficult for me early on to realize I was to do far better with this lure when I threw it up close to cover, then left it alone for what seemed like eternity before I moved it by manipulating my rod tip.
I also learned that it paid off to fish the Basser with frequent pauses, and to do this in such a fashion that I didn’t make it move far from the spot where it originally splashed down. I also discovered the best way to do this was to wait until the lure was looking right at me before I moved it at all.
Another fact also emerged. It was far more productive nearly always to not use big jerks that made the lure plop loudly as it dove and started to swim back to me. Note the word “nearly.” It’s there because you see I also discovered rare days when that noisy approach was just what those fickle minded bigmouths wanted. It was my first introduction to the cold, hard fact that there is no “always” associated with largemouth bass fishing.
Finally, one more truth also became obvious as I eventually pocketed enough bucks to purchase more bass fishing gear. As you might imagine, that gear included more Heddon Bassers in finishes other than the rainbow colored job I had picked up at a second hand store to start things off. The truth was that a Basser in a yellow perch finish was by far the most effective.
And that figured. Yellow perch, you see, were the primary forage fish for largemouth in Silver Lake. They still are. I killed my share of Silver Lake bass in the early days before pressure built to where catch-and-release became so essential. I often checked stomach contents of the fish I cleaned. I’d find remains of an occasional bluegill or catfish in those Silver Lake bass, but what those largemouth had been eating by far the most was yellow perch.
My wife finally got tired of me spending all my weekends at Silver Lake and suggested we look for property there. We found it. For 35 wonderful years we lived smack on the shore of that productive fish factory. My bass boat was in the water year around only 60-feet from our front door. That’s about as good as it gets.
I’ve still got a couple of the old perch finished Heddon Bassers I started with. I suppose there are those who won’t want to believe it when I say they catch fish about as well as they ever did. They do, that is, when they are properly fished in lakes where yellow perch are the primary forage of the bass.
I’ve never found these remarkable old lures as effective in other spots where yellow perch weren’t as abundant. Fact is I’ve never found another spot where the lure produced quite like it did at Silver Lake period.
As I’ve mentioned, the Heddon Company quit making the Basser many years ago. If I remember right, the lure was dropped from the company’s inventory around 1960. I endeavored to find out exactly why the lure was dumped, but never did get much of an answer. It evidently didn’t sell all that well in most parts of the country.
The Basser and the Lucky 13 were both in the Heddon catalog for a time back in the days I lived on the Silver Lake. Then the Basser was dropped. The Lucky 13 is still there. No company is likely to keep making a lure that’s not selling well. Evidently the Basser wasn’t.
I was surprised by that. I caught six times more fish on the Basser than I did on the Lucky 13 at Silver Lake. Evidently that wasn’t true where anglers in other parts of the country were concerned.
Keep what you’ve read in mind if you ever have opportunity to fish shallow and weed filled lakes where yellow perch are the primary forage fish. I’ve got to believe the old Basser will do the same thing for you that it did for me over the many decades I was to throw it.
You won’t find these old lures easy to come by. If you set out to do so stick with it until you find one with a good yellow perch finish. It probably won’t come cheap, but from where I sit there’s a good chance that old lure is going to be worth whatever bucks you have to part with to get it.
I don’t know how long you’ve been bass fishing. I hope you have opportunity to share the same amount of time I’ve had to enjoy it. You’ll wind up with your own treasure of memories if you do. I hope some of them will bring back special moments like my memories of Heddon’s old Bassers do for me.