Top Water Action for Largemouth

Cool July Mornings Equals Hot Top Water Action RHT 7/15 Bill Cooper A friend had called the previous evening inviting me to the early morning rendezvous. “Bass are hitting like crazy,” he had said. The kitchen light of the old farm house shined dimly through the window pane as I pulled under the soft maple tree draping over the driveway. The faint light provided evidence that my friend had not yet stirred from the comforts of slumber. The clock on my dash read 6:00a.m., the exact time he had insisted I be there. Just as I flipped the headlights off, a ghostly figure materialized in the living room window. Jim met me on the massive sandstone steps of the front porch. “I didn’t get in bed until 2:30 this morning,” he moaned “Listening to a soon to be ex-girlfriend. Go on down to the lake. I will come down later.” Deep in thought and lost in the beauty of my surroundings, I had just finished readying my rods when I heardd a vehicle coming down the hill towards the lake. I knew who it was. It sounded as if he needed to fish worse than me, but I was not about to give up the chance to get in some fabulous topwater fishing on his lake. Remote and situated in a beautiful hollow, this particular lake is one of my favorites to fish. No crowds. No hassles. Just raw nature and solitude. And Jim created it. And he occasionally allows me to enjoy all the wonders of this magnificent piece of earth. “Can’t sleep, huh?’, I queried. “Not at all,” Jim sighed. “Man, let’s fish. The morning is cool and the topwater action has got to be hot,” I commented hoping to soothe my friend’s wounds. We hung by a big rock for a long time. Fishing is always good there anyway. Jim’s Rapala worked magic. Bass after bass clobbered the minnow imitator. Most were 11-to-13 inchers. Didn’t matter. Jim chattered, but became ecstatic with each bass he hooked. The healing had begun. I tossed a 5-inch Sammy, one of those high dollar Japanese lures. I didn’t catch as many bass as Jim, but I concluded that my fish were bigger. We meandered across the lake, paddling here, then there to cast to every likely looking spot. We caught lots of bass, and some huge bluegill. The bass we caught were getting bigger, but nothing near the 8-pounder a friend of Jim’s had caught the week before. A truck came rattling down the lake road. “Loggers,” Jim replied. “It is too muddy. They can’t cut today.” We headed up the dam side of the lake. I like it there. Willows drape down low to the water. Bass hang back up under the limbs. Lots of insects drop into the water from the overhanging canopies. I tossed my Sammy towards a small pocket between a willow branch touching the water and a clump of cattails. Two twitches later, the water exploded. I leaned back hard on the rod and felt that heavy pulsing sensation as the big bass shook its head side to side underwater. “Heavy fish,” I said as I grinned ear to ear in the morning cool. The dark green beauty of the fish flashed as it turned for cover. The rod overpowered the waning strength of the largemouth and I caught a glimpse of its broad side. Jim grasped the maw of the brute and hauled it aboard. After a few photos, he gently gave the fish a few revival swishes in the stained lake water and fondly bade the bass good-bye. We both hoped to meet that bass again on another cool, summer morning. We finished the dam and swung the canoe along a steep rocky bank that dropped from a hardwood covered ridge. “We catch some very nice bass from this stretch,” Jim chuckled. “Well, what do you call the one I just caught?” I quizzed. Another chuckle. Fishing friends have a way of gouging one another that only fishermen understand. A dozen or so casts up the bank and the water boiled around my Sammy lure. It appeared that the bass sucked the bait in rather than having exploded on it like the last one. When I set the hook, surprise overtook me. Power surged up the rod. That moment of realization that one has connected to a big fish is a feeling that all fishermen would like to experience more often. We replay the moment over and over in our minds and dreams. They don’t happen often enough. The bass looked to be a twin of the first 4-pounder. A couple of bullfrogs serenaded us as we continued up the bank. “Wooooohw”, Jim yelled. “Oooooh, it got off! Can you back paddle to get me back to that cedar tree?” I silently wondered what he would have done if I had said no. Fishing buddies don’t do that, however. His cast put the Rapala in the perfect spot. His light rod arched. He had obviously hooked into a dandy. I saw a flash of a very tall fish side. “That may be your 8-pounder, Jim.” “It’s a crappie!” Jim gasped. “Naw, not that big,” I objected. It was a crappie, and the biggest one I had seen in a very long time; 2 ½-pounds. “I have been catching a few of these,” Jim confided. “I am not taking any of them out yet. These girls will lay a lot of eggs. I hope to have a good population within the next couple of years.” Jim and I paddled on around the lake. He tossed his Rapala. I tossed my Sammy. We continued catching bass. Why change lures when the one you are using works so well? It was probably one of those rare cool mornings when the bass would have hit anything that we tossed at them, but we will never know. We pitched what we had confidence in. Besides, fish weren’t the issue. Friendship was the issue. Time spent with a pal, who needed to talk. Nature soothed our souls and refreshed our spirits. We both walked away better men. And we had hope for the future-to build wood duck nest boxes and then hang them on the lake. I silently hoped that we do that on a cool morning and experience the hot topwater bass fishing action one more time together.