DATE: Wednesday, November 19, 1997          TAG: 9711190053

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E1   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Column 

SOURCE: Larry Maddry 

                                            LENGTH:   99 lines

HERE'S JUST THE THING IF YOU'RE ANGLING FOR A GOOD EXCUSE

YOU'D THINK, with all the lies I've told in print, I'd be able to think of a social lie on the phone. To excuse myself from some gathering, for example.

But I can't.

Weeks or months after an invitation, I'll get a hot call from someone I barely know:

``We're all down here at the 7-Eleven waiting for you. You promised me you'd be here. Are you coming or not?''

I always hate myself afterward. For being so slow-witted I cannot think of an excuse for not doing something. And for forgetting about the appointment I get myself into.

But lately something has come into my hands that is so useful as an excuse that I thought I'd pass it along.

And the good thing about it is it's a truthful excuse . . . in a way. And it's nearly guaranteed to get you off the hook.

We're talkin' Bass Fishin' here.

A couple of weeks ago, my editor, Eric Sundquist, gave me a product mailed to him by Radica USA Ltd. It is a hand-held, electronic computer game called ``Bass Fishin' ''.

``This might give you something to write about,'' he said, handing me a black plastic thing that the manufacturers say is a ``virtual reality'' item - whatever that means.

The thing resembled an automatic-drive gearshift with a viewing screen in the middle and a crank on the side resembling the one on a fishing reel.

It seemed like a virtually senseless item at first. But I began to realize the value of the virtual reality product only a day or so later.

After I had placed the game on a counter by my phone, a stranger phoned asking if I could wait on tables at a local restaurant on Saturday as part of a fund-raiser for Concerned Citizens Opposed to Dwarf Tossing in Taverns.

Call me Rush Limbaugh if you like, but I have always felt dwarfs who wanted to be tossed had every right to be tossed. So long as they are wearing appropriately soft shoes and headgear so customers are not injured.

But I didn't want to get into that, feeling the caller might be a friend of Princess Liberal Right-Thinker, who has strong feelings on that critical issue.

My eye fell on that unused black plastic gizmo still encased in plastic.

``Gee, I'd like to do that, but I've made plans to go Bass Fishin','' I told the caller.

You'd be surprised how well that worked.

The nice thing about that little dodge is that people who go bass fishing are damned serious about it. And although it might not be bass fishing season where you live, it's always bass fishing season some place. And you might be going there no matter how far away it is. Bass fishermen are like that.

I have seldom gone bass fishing myself. When I was a boy, my Uncle Butler took me bass fishing a couple of times. He was a man who never had a problem with thinking up lies on the phone or anyplace else.

We'd be sitting in the boat and he'd tell me whoppers bigger than anything dished out at Burger King. One was about a hunting dog he once had that could find a bird under any weather conditions or terrain and point as pretty as you please.

He claimed Blue (the dog's name) was in the boat with him on a hot summer afternoon and began to point just like he'd seen a bird: tail shooting straight out behind him and one foot raised.

He said his fishing partner thought the dog was crazy and said so. But a few minutes later - according to my uncle - he had reeled in a huge 25-pound bass.

``And when we cleaned the fish, there was a bird right there in his stomach. Old Blue beat anything I ever saw for finding birds,'' Uncle Butler said.

That Bass Fishin' excuse has worked really well every time I've used it. But I began using the gizmo, which has a little screen and crank on it, in case somebody asks what kind of lure, or drag, or something I intend to use.

The gadget has 20 kinds of plastic worms, jigs, spinner baits and buzzbaits printed right on the handle.

What you do is make a casting motion as though you were tossing out a line. The screen shows weather condition, where the fish are, the depth, stuff like that.

When you cast, a computer replica of the toss is displayed on the screen. And a sound box gives off a splashing noise. The handle begins to vibrate when you get a fish on the line.

Last night, while seated on the sofa with my dog, I hooked a 20-pounder using a skirted chartreuse jig.

Be nice if Radica would go a step further with virtual reality so that users of the game could mount a fish above the fireplace the way anglers do.

You know, maybe a computerized trophy board with buttons on the back that would create a picture of the fish you caught Bass Fishin' on the board's surface.

Be nice if each fish had a fishy smell too, which varied according to fish and water conditions.

I know my dog Mabel would like that. It would give her something to roll over on, the way she does with fish on the beach. Right now she's just about bored out of her skull with Bass Fishin' from the sofa.

Virtual reality ain't her thing. MEMO: Bass Fishin', a palm-size computer game from Radica, has a

suggested retail price of $19.95 and can be found at Wal-Mart, KMart,

Toys R Us and many other retailers. ILLUSTRATION: The Bass Fishin' computer game lets you snag the big

ones in virtual reality.

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