I may have broken a Bass Fishing record last night at the marina. Oh, that's the record for the SMALLEST LARGE MOUTH BASS ever caught! I could not get my lures past the little guys! When the lure hit the water "POW" it was a Large Mouth Bass Frenzy... but they were tiny! I felt so guilty, like I caught a couple of smurfs by mistake.
Catching a Large Mouth Bass... sure, It sounds exciting, every cast nets a fish. The lure hits the water, sinks a few inches, boom, caught a bass... but they were so pityful. It was like Oliver Twist grabbing oatmeal and then suddenly being dragged across the orphanage floor by his mouth! I've found that I've suddenly developed a hatred for large mouth bass.
I could see these little bass chasing the lure like it was a food truck passing out free hotdogs and Beer at a baseballgame. Sure, who can't resist Dogs and Beer? But those little bass really got on my nerves. What made it worse was that I could see the larger bass only a few feet away. They would peak out to see what was going on and slowly sink back into the deeper water.
I would cast a lure right at a big one and then these small guys would zip over and steal the lure before the big ones had a chance. It was like standing in line for fresh Egg Rolls at the buffet and right before you get a fresh egg roll.... about five little unsupervised kids run up can clean out the egg roll tray! You want to scream your frustration at their mom, "Hey Lady! Watch your kids! They could lose a couple of fingers or a hand when I'm in the Egg Roll zone!"
This may sound like Large Mouth Bass fishing bragging because I caught a bunch of them. But... I'm talking large Mouth Bass that were small... as in "palm" size or less. Think about ordering off the dollar menu and then asking the voice from the speaker... "Hey, could you give me just two nuggets instead of five? I'm trying to cut back on my nuggets!" I'm talking small fish.
I even tried to pull off a tiny large mouth bass diversion. I had to use the art of deception. In the case of fishing this means distracting the little ones with high tech distraction devices known as stall crackers or old Cheese Puffs. It's like a fish smoke screen. The problem is that if you don't do it right you end up chuming the water. The next thing you know there was a fish-a-pooluza going on. I had tiny fish from 25 states and eight different countries stealing my bait and grabbing my lures.
In all I caught seven "tiny" Large Mouth Bass and a QuaZillion Pan fish. (Quazillion is fish talk for a Whole bunch!) None of the Bass were bigger than my hand. The biggest of the bunch was probably a pound or less and I think he was voted off the Large Mouth Island... "Go ahead Timmy, grab that sharp shiny thing," the bigger fish would say. "Take one for the team!"
All of that being said... I caught two of the large Mouth Bass off of lures that I made from recycled materials including old beer bottle caps. That makes up for the pain of missing out on the egg rolls!
The Good news is that all of those TINY ones I released will be bigger next year! I'm sure my hatred for large mouth bass will fade by then. In fact, probably by Saturday morning when I'm going fishing again.
Image: Baha Fly Fishing
