Rousting A Big Bass From A Comfy Weed Bed

[FishinCricket]

Imagine, if you will, a pretty little swirlhole just below a riffle on a springfed creek.. 

There's a large boulder marking the bend in this tiny little creek, green with moss accumulation... The boulder sits below a depression in the bluff overhead, a chunk of earth that crashed to the ground eons ago...  The creek opens up past the boulder and, before it carries on bubbling downstream, it swirls back on both sides and forms our pretty little swirlhole..  

About 6 feet deep and strewn with smaller chunks of rock, scattered evidence of the aforementioned fate of the boulder and the bluff, the swirlhole has taken on a limb or log here and there and created a quaint little pond, complete with lillipads and a comfy, shaded little weed bed...  That weed bed is just as cozy a spot as a big Ol fat, lazy bass could ever find.

Now, the bass who eventually found this spot, He ain't just any bass..  He's a transplant, far away from his home waters.  He's not a refugee, he's there by choice.  See, he started out as a small fish in a big river and as he grew he came to understand that there would always be a bigger fish... So he ate and ate and grew fat, and strong.

Then one day he found the mouth of our little stream decided it was his time to be the big fish.  He worked his way up to the headwaters, where the tiny springs trickle down through the Ozark earth like razors, cold and sharp.  That's where he found our swirlhole, a place where the cold waters warmed between two spring feeds...  A place where the crayfish and minnows were plentiful, a domain where he could be king.  

And king he is!  Massive and ferocious amongst his peers with a deeper shade of bronze than the rest.  He quickly gained a following amongst the other smallmouth in the creek, a pack of wolves who hunt together.

So, this swirlhole...  It's the perfect habitat!  The spring waters are simply packed with minnows that provide all the nourishment that a fat Ol bass could ever need.  He and his pack want for nothing.

I've stood and watched the group of them carouse through the hole lazily, one at a time giving chase and slamming a minnow from the herd...  Or they will retreat to the edge of the current and hold behind one of the small chunks of rock that forms a wedge in the flow.  I assume the pick up crawdads and minnows alike there, but the movements in and out of the rocks are so subtle in the deeper recesses of the pool that it's difficult to ascertain their exact habits.

Have I described a paradise to watch, brothers?  I know the first time my eyes locked on the huge slab of bronze as it turned to lazily address my teeny craw my heart skipped a beat.. As his body turned and caught the current he flipped his tail and enveloped my teeny craw..  I was, at first, too transfixed to move..  This thing was massive on any scale, but almost surreal for a creek like this..

I got two good turns out of him the first time, then I guess he realized he was hooked... He turned that massive body out into the current and with two swats of his tail (and a burning smell from my reel) he popped my 4 lb test like a piece of old thread. I watched him shake his head in the gravel and free himself of the double treble hook that has caused him such temporary discomfort, then turn and slide back upstream to hover over those rocks and guard his weedbed, gliding through the current effortlessly.

I retrieved my lure from downstream (thankfully) and headed back up to the boulder above the swirlhole.  There I sat and watched this pack of wolves/smallmouth meander back and forth through the swirlhole and the weedbed until I had to go home.

For the next week my thoughts kept returning to the massive smallie that had so effortlessly busted my line and escaped my capture.  I could envision myself back at the edge of that swirlhole, clueless to what lay before me just behind the rocks, tucked into the current.  I could feel the reel ticking and the teeny craw wiggling, could feel my pulse quicken as that bronze side displayed itself and gave chase to my offering... I wasn't going to let him get away again.

Armed with my best lite rod and every artificial lure in my tackle box, I stealthily worked my way back up the little creek before dawn on a Wednesday morning.  Daybreak found me perched upon the boulder overlooking the swirlhole and the weedbed. I sat until the sun was high in the sky and the sweat was pouring, then I climbed down disgusted.  Had someone come and caught them?  Surely not ALL of them.

Just as I began to cross the creek (and head down to the nearest Goggleye bed and salvage my day) the wolf pack came gliding into view from downstream.  And here I was, standing right in the middle of their path! I froze solid and watched them work their way past me...  You could tell they saw me cause they slid over to the bank to continue on their path.  After waiting for what seemed like an eternity I finally slid out of the stream and back up to the swirl, where the wolf pack was waiting on their weedbed.  It occurred to me that these bass don't frequent this hole until the afternoon.

As they turned their noses up at every single lure in my box over that afternoon I became perplexed.  Had I spooked them?

After another two weeks of striking out like a rookie in a trout park I decided to pull out all the stops and brought my buddy and his cast net. Surely this would put and end to my discouragement?

We discovered that the wolf pack will eat minnows, but only the really big ones and not if they are weighted or dead.  Standing in the middle of that creek one sweaty autumn afternoon I finally latched onto that beast of a smallmouth and brought it to hand.  Measuring 18 inches and thick as your leg, he was a brute... and a blast! But the catch lacked something that I couldn't put my finger on. I shrugged it off for as long as I could, congratulating myself on such a great catch ad consoling myself with the idea that anyone would be proud to have accomplished what I had on that tiny Ozarks creek.

Over the past few months I have really gotten into not only fly tying, but also the science behind it, the art of the craft..  Not just the physical tug of the strike on my line, not merely the magical way that long willowy rod drags the line through the air, but a combination of all these elements, and something more...  That's when it hit me, the idea that has plagued my subconscious since I landed that behemoth in that small ozarks creek:

When I presented a minnow on a circle hook, the bass didn't hesitate..  And why should it?  I had studied it's environment thoroughly, I had focused solely on capturing the fish.  It was an accomplishment to set the hook on the fish and bring him to my hands. But I hadn't tricked him, I had simply offered him what I knew he ate, so how could he resist?

I realized right then that a lions share of the excitement had been in tricking that fish with my plastic crawdad..  Presenting it in just the right way as to imitate a live crayfish swimming down the stream to hide in the weedbed, convincing enough to elicit a strike from a fish who has eaten hundreds of thousands of the real thing and, by all rights, should darned well know the difference.

I'm not saying that I'll never bait fish again, but it's obvious to me now why so many pick up the artificials and never look back.  It's not about the ease and convenience, the mortality rate or some sense of responsibility to the wildlife code...  It's about the excitement of fooling a very wise and wary, wild animal with something that is man-made..  

I can't wait to tie up a few sparkle minnow articulating streamers and see if I can't trick that behemoth again...  I wonder if the winters giggers and this springs floods have left his kingdom unscathed?

[Trout Commander]

...and now I know the rrrrrrest of the story.

Good job, very well written.

Now can you see why it seems like some fly fisherman are snobs? It's not that they are snobs its that the bait fisherman haven't had the epiphany that you have now had.

[FishinCricket]

Which means now I'm a snob... Thanks J..

[Buzz]

Great story.

[Justin Spencer]

Great story. I think most fly fishermen have gone throught this evolution until you get to the point where the most enjoyment comes from catching fish on patterns you have dreamed up and tied. I'm a poor tier at best but still occasionally come up with something trout like to eat. Fishing with two flies allows you to catch fish on proven patterns while trying out new creations, and when the new creation is the one they bite it is oh so sweet!