THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 4, 1996 TAG: 9607310034
SECTION: REAL LIFE PAGE: K6 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: REAL MOMENTS
SOURCE: BY BRYAN BLACK, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 99 lines
IT HAD BEEN way too long since I'd been on the water.
But I've been so involved in coaching my three sons' youth sports teams that my fishing days had dwindled to just about nevermore.
The boat, a 14-foot aluminum V-hull, and trailer had sat in the yard since last fall.
When we finally had a rare Saturday with no baseball practice or game, my middle son couldn't wait.
He loves to fish.
He caught his first largemouth on an artificial lure at age 4. Now 10, he spends most of his time catching fastballs. He'll be behind the plate when we begin play in the AAU National Championships in less than two weeks in Kansas City.
But, like his dad, he misses our time on the water.
We picked up one of his AAU teammates and headed for the Western Branch fishing station in Suffolk. Would the old rickety trailer's wheel bearings hold up? Would the tires make it?
No sweat. We rolled into the parking lot shortly after 1 p.m. .
Shoot, here it was July 20, and I'm buying a fishing license.
Almost seven months of 1996 gone, and this guy with 15-plus rods hanging from his garage wall and almost that many tackle boxes is just buying a fishing license.
Ridiculous.
How could it have taken this long to get back on the water?
Oh, yeah. Needed a boat permit, too.
So we took to the water with my wallet considerably lighter.
Even though it had been some time since I had been on the lake, I know the water well. I've fished it so many times through the years. I know the coves, the pockets, the submerged stumps, the laydowns, the sandy spots, the shell beds, the submerged road beds.
I knew we would be on shellcrackers within a half-hour.
Wrong.
We had trouble finding concentrations of fish.
We picked one up here and there, but we weren't on fish like I had anticipated.
My son stayed with his bottom rig - light-action spinning rod, 6-pound test, a piece of a nightcrawler looped onto the long-shank, little hook.
I was already tired of fishing for little stuff and not catching much of anything.
I switched to a rod I use to fish plastic worms.
The first bass came quickly.
Then another and another.
It was amazing.
Fishing a plastic worm is like riding a bicycle, I thought.
Once you've learned how to do it, you never forget. It was like I had never taken time away.
Content with my success with the plastic worm, I rejoined my son in fishing for shellcrackers.
The white perch were active that day, but my son's teammate hadn't caught a fish yet.
After hooking a fish, I handed the rod to him. Too much slack got in the line. Darn. That white perch had looked to be upwards of two pounds. A citation.
Oh, well. So what if we let a citation get away.
Soon, we motored up the lake.
We stopped off a main lake point that I've fished countless times.
The bottom rigs dropped.
I had already told the boys at least a hundred times that they were fishing too fast.
Tap, tap, tap.
I set the hook.
Moments later, we had a huge shellcracker in the boat. I didn't need to weigh this oneto know it was a citation. A quick hook-up to the hand-held scales, though, showed him to be pushing 1 1/2 pounds.
Not bad for my first fishing day of 1996.
We worked down the shoreline.
The boys were catching white perch, shellcrackers and bluegills at a fairly steady clip.
I went back to my plastic worm rod.
Watch my line, I told them repeatedly.
On down that shoreline, I knew another bass had picked up my plastic worm. This one was swimming pretty fast toward deeper water.
``Watch the line!'' I told the boys.
Bang. I set the hook.
His huge mouth agape, the bass tried to emerge from the water.
Too big. He shook his head, but he couldn't propel himself from the water as he could when he had weighed just a pound or three.
He looked to be every bit of seven pounds, possibly much more. No way he was going to get airborne..
This guy was plenty strong in the water, though.
That old eight-pound test line that had been on the reel since who knows when was no match for this guy.
I was too slow in backing off on the drag, and the big bass snapped the line after taking me halfway around the boat.
No citation would be had from him.
But what a day.
I hadn't been fishing since last fall, and the first day on the water I get three citation fish on the line.
And even though I landed only one, I'll take a day like this one any time.
And, what's better, the smiles on the boys' faces were even more precious than the memories of the fish that got away. by CNB