My friends and I have been occasioning a small park pond here in Collin County for some while now. It is a fun place to go for bluegill on a ought or one weight rod. The big kick was always that every once in a while a big old bass would zip out to take the bluegill that was already hooked and there was some Nantucket Sleighride time until he got wise and dropped the bluegill.
So we started scheming on how we’d hook up with some of these bass. The results of our various attempts were meager indeed. The only bass I hooked in all the dedicated bass trips was one yearling on a small Calcasieu Pigboat variant. Bummer deal that! It started to be a sort of “when I win the Lotto” situation when we’d meet, fail and go on our ways.
Then the other day I decided that I was going to take it to the extreme and do it at night. Not late afternoon, not dusk, not twilight but oh dark thirty blackout. Tied on a #4 Muddler Minnow and started walking the shore, casting down the shoreline away from me and stripping it back.
It did not take long for the blowups to start! I missed five or more fish who simply were coming unstuck. I blame operator error in the main.
Finally I hooked up, landed a small bass, about a pound. Whew! Great! Kept on working my way down the line and about a third of the way around I got a fish on who, while he might not make the cull in a B.A.S.S. tournament, was a great fighter and made my day.
That’s my detachable butt 4 weight bamboo. What a fight! leaps and runs made me remember what it’s all about! After photoing this guy I continued, got many more misses and blowups and only a couple more landed fish. One fish was hooked and came unstuck three times before he took the hint and quit hitting that Muddler. Now that’s aggression!
So the code is broken, the other team members are apprised and we have at least one successful way to land bass at this park pond.
Now, perhaps a sink line and some foam…