Bass Escapade After Work

Put in a long day on the job, but left nine minutes early, and when I came off Interstate 78 in Bedminster, noticed enough light left to grab my St. Croix and camera. This pond about a hundred yards from my doorstep, I had time for a quick hamburger, finding some warm in the frying pan, my wife out walking Sadie, our black Lab. I almost felt catching a few bass a foregone conclusion after the last I fished here pretty late in the day, and my first cast got a pickup, which I botched by inadvertently putting pressure on the line before I would set. The Chompers dropped, I cast the area for nothing else.

And then I worked down along the shoreline opposite to the other in the photo, sitting in the grass and casting edges of floating algae mats as dusk fell, relaxing my strained and pained upper back from being on my feet all day. Nothing doing. Once again, the pond felt dead, but this wasn't mid-day like last time.

I got an idea. I went and fished all the way in the back, where a pipe delivers run-off to a hole about four feet deep, thinking this might be my ace-up-the-sleeve. Hee, hee, hee. Well, nothing. So I sat there and cast to more algae mats, not that the algae has reached problem level, or not yet.

Apparently, the pond was chemically treated a month or more ago.

That's life. Most of the time the ace-up-the-sleeve is just a wish fancy, but if you look at the big picture--if you can or will see it--invariably you find life works out for you; what you have and experience is enough--there's always more--and despite all the particular opinions casting you in an unfavorably light, your own life fits in with everything else as an essential piece to the puzzle riddling people now and for as long as any of us exist.

So much for the neighborhood pond. I fished north of here the other day and did real well in the middle of the day. Who knows. Maybe in a few years, after last year's fish kill, this bass pond almost in my "backyard" (I have none) will fish the way it used to, and though I never fish it much, it's nice being there for a little escapade such as this evening's.