Gulf Fisheries Come Back

10 Years after the Spill

More Big Bass at the Lake

We paddled up lake against heavy wind. Among grassy weeds, I anchored and reached for a Senko. "I think I left my bag at the dock," Brian said. It was understood we weren't going back and fighting that wind again. "I hope it doesn't get ripped off."

I passed Brian a Chompers.

The Senko's open hook seemed too vulnerable to getting hung. I switched to a Chompers within a minute or so and continued working pockets and edges under very intense sunlight. The whole lake seemed full of that light and I knew the bass probably took cover in the thickest of the weeds. Maybe a heavy tungsten jig would have got to them.

We paddled further against the wind and got into position to cast those bushy overhangs where Matt caught his big pickerel in April. After half a dozen or more casts, I placed the Chompers along an edge, let it drop, and then the line swiftly peeled off the spool before I closed the bail, tightened, and set the hook into the 18-inch largemouth photographed below.

No more action thereafter.

Around the back of the island and into the main body of the lake, the thought of worming seemed absurd in the wind and all that light, so I switched to s spinnerbait. I would have felt better casting it if the water was five degrees cooler. It was a summery 79 degrees, but wind chopped the surface and the sunlight reflected off the blade. Soon I hooked and boated a 23-inch pickerel that apparently rose off the bottom four or five feet down to take chase and slam that lure riding about two feet under the surface. To get the spinnerbait near bottom was pointless with all the weeds. As you can see in the next photo, that savage fish bent the spinnerbait's arm.

I thought maybe I was onto something and we would enjoy more action, but we cast and cast--nothing hit but one little fish for Brian. We drifted and anchored, drifted and anchored. And paddled. Brian preferred throwing plugs, and his fish didn't stay long on the line.

We would get off the lake before sundown. Our time out neared its finish. I happened to notice a lure bag behind my seat. "Brian, I was sitting by your lure bag this whole time!" I felt like an idiot. What do you do when your boat partner tells you he thinks he forgot his lure bag? You have a look at the stuff around you. Later on, I told him I'm negligent. Being old with memory loss is a better description. There was no willful negligence about it, but I really should have looked in the first place. It didn't occur to me to do that. That's what I mean.

Brian rigged up with a Senko. We had come upon thick weeds with lots of pockets. I had a Senko on, also. I said, "The bass are probably in the thickest of this stuff." And I mentioned heavy jigs, which I did not have. Regardless, I put my Senko in pockets and really did not have trouble with that open hook. It got hung momentarily here and there, but it was easy to pull free without collecting weeds. Soon I felt a tap and tightened the line. The fish moved in my direction. I set the hook and boated the 17-, maybe 17 1/2-inch bass of the final photo, hooked near the nose on the upper jaw, right where you would expect of a fish moving in your direction.

Minutes later Brain said, "It's six pounds!" I looked aside and saw great commotion at the surface, certain this one was no 18-incher. When I netted it, Brian said, "No, five." He was pretty close to right on the money about that. I passed him my tape measure, but he had difficulty measuring it, said it was 19 inches. I told myself no way was this bass going on the record as that small and insisted on measuring it myself.

Twenty and three-quarters of an inch long.

The difference between weedy pockets at the end of the day, and those at the beginning, was an entire world. As I said, we didn't stay to sunset. But with sun rays angling low, I imagine at least some bass came out of the thick and were vulnerable to Senkos. No clouds blocked sun, but the late light had an entirely different quality compared with what we faced going in. It even felt inviting...to venison tacos, perhaps, such as those Brian's wife Carolyn had fixed for us when we got to the house.

Brian told me what lures he has in his bag. I guess the best way to make sense of his spending a couple of hours with the uncertainty, affecting how he fished, is that the threat of loss might make him better appreciate having the bag. I know I need my reminders. And I'm forever grateful to Brian for housing my canoes and fishing with me.

White Lake Largemouth Bass

White Lake is supposedly well-known for the clarity of its water, and if you hear about this from friends or read about it, you might be led to believe it has the clearest water in the state, even better than Round Valley. For all I know, maybe it does through the winter, but today, though the water was plenty clear, it wasn't nearly as clear as was Tilcon Lake in March. Just the same, last June, Matt and I found Tilcon not as clear as we found it early this year.

Oliver had holdover trout on his mind, so the first order of business, once the squareback got launched, was to set up the sonar, switch it on, and begin looking. This took me less than a minute to do, and we had already motored over 26 feet of water. We went clear across the lake trying to mark trout, cutting the electric to drift little shiners, but the wind was so heavy that we would have needed heavy egg sinkers to get any depth. My having overlooked bringing any along mattered to me very little, because I didn't see much point in trying for trout apparently scattered and inaccessible, only one fish having shown on the graph.

We got in close to shore, found the drop-off, and began marking plenty of fish. Oliver sighted a bass. We rigged with crankbaits and began trolling the edge. When we neared a corner, I decided to cut the electric, anchor, and fish a Senko. It took awhile, but the result was the bass you see below in mid-air. I hooked it about 18 feet down, a two-pounder, and though Oliver caught it on his camera, you can see in the next photo the best I did. I touched the bass, having seen the hook was lose and knowing the likelihood of not boating it, and I never got a grip on its maw.

We tried another spot that we had noticed looked good while we trolled, and then decided to go to the back of the lake. I hoped to get us out of the wind. We found some submerged treetrunks. Depth was 12 feet or so. I pitched the Senko in among them and let it glide on down. It's a way of fishing that requires patience, and a lot of guys will not do it. They rely on weighted plastics, and though I have no argument against fishing that way, at least not when it really comes down to it, I give unweighted Senkos all the time they need to sink to bottom. I fished with Eric Evans a couple of times from his bassboat, and on one of the occasions, he did really well with a weighted swimbait he bounced on bottom only seven or eight feet down, but I also do the same patient fishing with traditional-style worms that sink twice as slowly as Senkos.

I noticed my line move to the left, tightened the connection and set the hook, nervous about line getting tangled in timber, feeling heavy weight for a couple of seconds--that delicious feeling of a good bass on--and then suddenly the line felt lose. It happened so fast it was like the bass was trying to get in my face. Right there in front of us it was airborne, the big mouth wide open, the Senko flying free. Seventeen or 18 inches.

After that it was a pretty trying day. Oliver sighted a bass. He had a couple of fish take minnows, which he lost. I felt perplexed, because we had definitely found a nice, rounded corner with pads near the bank, plenty of weeds filling out a drop that didn't descend too sharply, all the deep water nearby a bass could ever want. I fished my Senko deep, in the weeds, and I put it against grass. Sometimes a big bass will be in a foot of water. Oliver spotted a pickerel about two feet long among weeds. I plugged and plugged for that one or the likes of it with a Rebel Pop-R. I put a weedless frog on the pads. Nothing happened and I know it sometimes gets like this. Fish are there, but they will not take any interest in what you toss them.

I got nervous as sunset neared, because I had read a sign at the gate. It told me that gate closes at sunset. Oliver kept quelling my anxiety, pointing out other boats on the lake showing no intentions of going in. In any event, we would get the canoe on my Honda, but no way did I want us to have to carry it two hundred yards. I've been through that sort of thing before. We lingered, nothing happening, when finally Oliver's rod bent double and a bass went airborne. That's the bass of the cover shot, a pretty nice one caught on a Senko. I felt relieved. Oliver wasn't skunked.

Oliver found this toad at Brian's house where the canoe is kept.

Wawayanda