I woke up one beautiful summer morning with the strong urge to go fishing. Imagine that? I turned on the weather channel & sat back to watch the day's forecast. The wind was at 1 mph. and the temperature was slowly rising. I was very excited once I saw optimal bass fishing conditions & called my friend Vinny. He answered with a groggy voice & as I explained the weather he slowly came to life & a sound crackled from his mouth. "aahwegoin'?" To which I replied "WHAT??" He then cleared his throat with a rumble & said "are we going?" Yep, be ready in 15 I said. On the way there we did our usual teasing & putting down each other's angling tactics (which is the norm) & we then decided to settle this battle with a lunch bet.
We both agreed. As we launched the boat we made up some really tasty sounding sandwiches that we would make the other pay for as part of the agreement for losing. We chatted about lobster heroes all the way to caviar soup. Mmm Mmm Good! We finally reached a shoreline that produced some really
nice fish in the past. We were using plastic worms with an eighth of an ounce bullet head & a sluggo hook since it holds the worm on a lot longer & prevents it from sliding down the hook when smaller fish tug at the worm's tail. I casted in the worm a few times to loosen the line on the spool & untwist any potential kinks that may have formed on the line from the previous trip. While focusing on the spool with the bail open I noticed my line pull slightly from my fingers in a short jerk. I figured it was a little sunny or crappie & just left it as I uncoiled more line to a desired casting length which would reach the shore line under the over hanging trees with the skipping of my worm. I closed the bail manually & checked the weight to see if a fish had taken my offering. As I raised it, I saw another fast barrage of nibbles & set the hook. ZZZING!! Nothing. I pulled the hook so hard I jerked our little 12' Jon boat & almost capsized it. Vinny yelled "Hey, trying
to flip us??" We laughed it off.
We were slowly blowing along the shoreline with the slightest of winds adjacent to a submerged tree. I joked about a HUGE bass being in the tree ready for my worm & casted. The worm hit about 3' from the front of what looked like the top of the tree & slowly descended. From previous experience I estimated the drop to be about 9 or 10'. The worm stopped short of my assumption, so I figured it was caught in the very tip of the submerged tree. I raised the tip of my rod & saw the line slowly jerk with one hard pull so I reeled up slack while lowering the tip of the rod & set the hook ZZING!! The rod stayed bent. At first I thought it was caught on what we call a Largemouth Branch, ( code word for tree) but I was wrong. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz the
line took off to my left. I held the rod up skyward to keep pressure on whatever was at the end of my line. I started hooting & hollering about that Lobster Hero that I was going to wolf down once we got back to dry land. Vinny insisted it was still a large mouth branch, to which I disagreed.
I started to turn towards the fish & he immediately changed direction & headed back for the tree. He was powerful. The line started stripping again as he guided my line toward the hulking tree. Zzzzzzzzzzz zzz zzz The bass started playing jump in & out of the tree pictured behind me. He finally navigated in & out of several
branches & got stuck. I yelled thinking he was lost forever & I contemplated losing my rig and the fish. I kept a constant pressure on and the fish came out of one branch but I still had a few more to untangle. I smiled as I looked over at my buddy. This fish dove under a 900 lb tree & weaved in & out of the limbs like a true pro! He had done this to other fishermen before. "Click" I felt a branch give under the water with the gain of some line & kept constant pressure. The line went slack for a second. Then I reeled up quickly
to catch up with the fish & all of a sudden it breached the water like an ICBM & jumped over the tree in an awesome display of strength & agility. I noticed that the branch was still dangling weaved into my line & that made me nervous.
However I kept at it. Rod up, pressure on & trying to gain line. I could've sworn he had his tail shaped in the form of a middle finger when he jumped!! Maybe I just got up too early to go fishing this day. :) After calling him every name in the book, he started to pull less, he jumped shorter distances, this time when he jumped, he hit the tree. I thought he knocked 'em self out. My heart was thumping & felt like it was in my throat, my knees started knockin' when I first set the hook. I thought I was going to lose him with each jump. I finally gained line on it & conquered 'em. What a magnificent fish. I wish I had a scale to weigh him. After a short rant on how I'm going to have the best, most expensive hero known to man I asked Vin to take a
picture. I had to have one for my album since it was such a roller coaster of a fight. The bass is currently swimming free somewhere in my secret fishing hole & I hope we meet again real soon.
New York State Bassin' :)
Michael Di Pippo, President & CEO
http://penfishingrods.com ™
"A Fish is Too Valuable to Only Catch Once!"
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