Good-sized pickerel for Oliver
Up at 3:45 a.m., I dressed, went downstairs, and took my camera to the car, noticing that temps seemed somewhere in the 60's. I soon learned the temperature at Bedminster was 59, but at Brian Cronk's house near Dover, where Oliver Round and I soon met, it was 54. We both wore shorts, which proved to be no problem. I had a Woolrich on over a T-shirt. Soon after we launched the squareback canoe, I gave the Woolrich to my black Labrador, Loki. Made his comfort more of a real thing, rather than something to want.
Recently, I've been trying to write posts that reflect the actual outing while having a more general theme, complete with subheadings. Supposedly, that's good for search engine optimization, and while Google has indexed some of the posts, I got to feeling I was getting away from you, the reader. I like to sit down and hew very close to the outing, without concerning myself much with revision or additional structure. You get a story true to life, which one would hope indeed honors the value of life on earth. If writers ceased to exist capable of doing that, it would beg the question as to whether life on earth will soon cease. Civilization is defined by the written word. Civilization is an "armed madhouse," according to poet Allen Ginsberg, given it's predilection for nuclear warheads. If no word honored nature...
I like to feel challenged, as much as it's disagreeable to me. The canoe, the marine battery, the electric motor are heavy objects, and especially a Tilcon Lake outing requires manhandling. We loaded it all onto a dolly rated for 450 pounds. Oliver easily wheeled it across the two- or three-hundred yards, while I couldn't help but fear something going wrong, which never did. I led Loki along.
The scenery was stunning. Heavy dew on the greenery made it all silver. Mist rose from the 76-degree lake. I dread these outings, but as they always say, courage is going ahead and doing it in the face of such feeling, and so far, my lower back has not given way since July 2, 2023. It just threatens to. More to life exists than ease, and hardship is a thing of youth...not many of us are millionaires at age 22, let's say, but by age 67, perhaps most well-educated people are so. Taking on difficulty as I grow older keeps me feeling young. Weight defines the earth. Its gravity. Getting outdoors is healthy but participating in them is more so. I just wish I hadn't doubted our being able to get the canoe, fully loaded, up the incline from the launch site when we were leaving. We did it without much difficulty. And we wheeled it all the way out, without any more incident than an adjustment or two to get the dolly facing forward rather than at an angle.
From the outset, Oliver shoved us off with a paddle, as I vaguely remember. I cast. A green pumpkin Yum Dinger. Set my rod down and fiddled with tackle or whatever. At my knees, or between them, or however I balanced my rod, I felt tension. And that tension was enough to feel like a fish. I picked up the rod, took in slack, set the hook. The bass was small but a first-cast fish.
We began working our way along that shoreline I've ignored over the years...until another friend, Brenden, and I fished last year.
Oliver hooked a pickerel on a jig & plastic. Proved to be about 20 inches. We came to a corner when I thought to myself about how I always appreciate corners. This one would especially be no different if it were to yield action. I might have cast once or twice when I arced a good one so I could work the Yum Dinger down into the throat of it...which is where I got a pickup. By the time I tightened up on the Power Pro, the fish had traveled a few yards and I set the hook as swiftly as possible.
I soon felt relieved to see the hook wasn't set deep. That bass had fought damn hard for a fish no better than three-and-a-half pounds, about 18 1/2 inches. I didn't measure it, though, because it bled, which happens sometimes unrelated to the hook. I think it has to do with bass that struggle especially hard, blood somehow lost from the gills. Whatever is the case, I got the bass back in the lake and hoped for the best.
We tried beyond the corner, but since nothing happened, I felt eager to try where herring had balled-up in May. To my surprise, there was a big herring ball there. Not many fish worked it, although I caught a bass shy of two pounds at an edge of the baitfish roaming about the area. Oliver caught another pickerel, either in this area, soon thereafter, or maybe it was back along that shoreline. We fished thoroughly. Major weedbeds there offer possibilities. But the sun climbed with not a cloud to be seen, and I could see in the distance that the farthest shoreline was shaded.
So we trolled over. In minutes, I had a pickerel about as big as Oliver's best, but we lost the fish at the net. We carefully worked our way, casting our Dingers into the shade. Oliver cast to an edge where the shoreline turns and recedes, saying, "You'd think there'd be a fish in that spot."
Seconds later he hooked up.
Like the corner, another instance of anticipation. I had a teacher at Hampshire College who chided a short story scene I created featuring a moment of anticipation as if it "couldn't" happen, but in my life, the flat "realism" of an outer world altogether unrelated to the inner isn't the case.
As we neared the end of the shaded shoreline, I told Oliver about a weedbed around the corner and up a little way. You feel these things. The weedbed felt satisfying. Before we even got to it. And sure enough, I hooked my last bass of the day, about two-and-a-quarter pounds. Had switched out for a Chomper's on an inset hook to deal better with the weeds.
I trolled the edge of another weedbed for a pickerel that got free boatside. Other than that, Oliver had tied a fly to a dropper and caught a sunfish. The sun was high. The temp had climbed. Even the water reached 79.
Oliver's bass was a nice one.
My early morning bass.
Maybe two pounds.
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