July Topwater Bass

 When I turned out of my driveway Tuesday morning, the thick fog ahead was surprising. Should have expected it; hot days and rainy evenings often result in morning fog. So the twenty-minute drive to the lake took a little longer than usual, headlights on low beam and hoping a deer or moose, or vehicle, didn’t suddenly materialize in front of me. But at that early hour I didn’t encounter a single other vehicle in front of or behind me, nor were any wildlife hit. At the empty boat ramp, the eastern sky was just showing gray when I pushed the boat into the lake.

Itching to go fishing for several days and waiting for some weather I could handle. I can’t recall ever having such a long stretch of hot, stormy weather. 90-plus degrees was almost unheard of not long ago, and the storms have never been more violent. I’ve had to cut several trees that had fallen in our yard and there are a few more over my woods trails that will wait for cooler, autumn temperatures. Add to that a couple of smoke-filled days from the wildfires north of here when we were advised to stay indoors or mask up, well, it’s been an unusual summer.

The forecast called for a warm, calm day, so I figured to be on the water early and explore some new bass water. I’d been tying some deer-hair bass bugs and was eager to get them on the water. And though late July has never been the premier time for topwater fishing, a bass or two in the early morning shallows was the goal.

The lake was glassy smooth; the fog was cool and damp. It felt wonderful! I dropped the electric trolling motor and found out it wouldn’t turn left with the foot control. A frustrating situation, for sure, but not entirely unexpected. The old MinnKota has been a little temperamental lately. Still, it was a beauty of a morning, and reaching down to turn the motor by hand was possible.

The first bass came quickly. A subtle strike next to a rock -- the green deer-hair just disappeared. Not a large fish, but a start.  Moving along the rock shoreline, adjusting the motor by foot and hand. I realized just how much I rely on that foot pedal. Casting on that windless morning was a pleasure; hitting targets near rocks and wood made me look better than I really am. Of course, no one was there looking.

A small pike attacked next. Those pike are notorious for cutting the line, and wire bite tippet is often used, but that morning I had on a fluorocarbon tippet and was happy it held. Then came another bass, then another. And they were getting bigger. Despite the tiresome task of hand steering the motor, there was no better place to be.

Watching the sun rise over fog. A red ball of brightness climbing through the smoky eastern sky. A few days ago the water-scooping firefighting planes were using this lake to refill their tanks, and a public announcement asked boaters to stay clear of Big Bay so the aircraft could do their jobs. I was fishing nowhere close to that area but would have heard and seen them if they were there. For a while the fires were burning a little over 30 miles north of my home but have burned their way east, and I assume the planes are using closer lakes to the drop zones.

Two rods were rigged with deerhair bass bugs. One, a Dahlberg type diver and the other an old foam-faced popper that's caught many fish and is getting worn out. I was casting the bigger popper when the wake came from ten feet and a pike smashed it. Again, the tippet held, and I wished my knockoff go-pro camera was propped for a photo.

Time for a break, I motored out to a walleye hole and dropped anchor. A paddle-tail jig was dropped overboard off the spinning rod, but the cooler holding lunch was more interesting. So, with coffee cup in hand, and feet up, I relaxed and enjoyed the view. And pondered what to do about the trolling motor. There was nobody around. On a 40,000-acre lake filled with islands, bays, and plenty of development, I was alone. It felt like a sci-fi movie where the character finds himself the only survivor after an apocalyptic event. It was great!

After lunch, I half-throttled the outboard to the north. Some good-looking spots needed exploring. It was getting warm out, and the sound of another boat finally came across the lake. A couple hundred feet of shoreline produced nothing, and that trolling motor was getting tiring. About to call it a day, I eased into the mouth of a tiny bay that looked too good to pass up. I’d give it another half-hour. The sun was high now and this spot would have been better found when it was cooler and shadier. Casting to a rocky north shore brought a missed strike that came from nowhere, then a toss to a pocket of bulrushes tucked in along the rocky shoreline.

The retrieve was slow, short strips and long pauses. A fish appeared under the fly. Then it turned away, and there was that moment of hesitation—should I twitch the fly? Strip it? Pause? In that split second of indecision, the bass spun around, and in a swirl the fly vanished.

The first pull stung line through my fingers. This was a good fish. Smallmouth bass fight, and this one was giving its all. It ran off, came back, under the boat, around the boat, and finally pulled to the net where I was able to fulcrum the handle off the gunwale and lift a beauty of a fish aboard. This time the camera was ready, and the fish was hoisted for a quick pic and measurement. Then back in the net and water. I had to admire that bass as in finned in the net, probably feeling indignant and embarrassed at its predicament. The net was submerged and off it went. May it survive and live a long and healthy life. If I find it again, maybe it will have grown to 21, or perhaps even 22 inches. I hope so.

 

-- So, that trolling motor. Yesterday I was about all set to head for the fleet store 30 miles away that had a comparable Minn Kota trolling motor in stock. I don’t need many of the features some of the most expensive models have, but foot-control is mandatory. When standing and fly casting in the bow, my hands are busy, so I don’t care to reach for a remote dangling around my neck, and the ones I've seen are sort of like a TV remote -- too many buttons. Many times, fighting a fish the boat is steered away from obstacles using the foot control. But, not wanting to give up on the old motor without a fight, I decided to take things apart. Thanks to a screwdriver, a dental pick, scissors, a heavy-duty zip-lock bag, and a bit of gel type super glue, the motor is now working as it should. It may be a temporary fix. I’m keeping my fly-line stung fingers crossed.

 

 

... and happy for it!

 I was fifteen minutes into my 3-hour drive when PJ called and informed me that I’d forgotten all my food in the refrigerator.  I’d loaded my cooler with a few beers and water bottles, along with ice, but I’d spaced out on my lunch and supper fixings. Maybe old age was setting in. Or perhaps it was the usual restless night’s sleep I usually have when anticipating a long drive followed by a longer day of fishing. There are worse things than forgetting the vittles and I knew of a big grocery store in the town close to the river so rather than turning back for home I decided to go on and grab a couple of sandwiches on the way.

For a Friday morning the roads were peacefully vacant of traffic, which I appreciated as I wound my way southwest. My route twists and turns through a network of two-lane county roads that seem to lead to nowhere. Little towns passed quickly, the gas stations still closed in the early hour. Even passing through the Cuyuna Range -- a retired iron mining community now a mountain-biking mecca of northern Minnesota-- was void of the usual rack-mounted bikes and kayaks.

It wasn’t yet eight in the morning when I pulled into the market in a town that seems like a too big of a city in a place it shouldn’t be. But after the quick supply stop and a drive through town among lanes of vehicles in a hurry to be somewhere else, I finally escaped the busy-ness and was on the final leg to the river.

Tony had already launched his boat and arrived minutes behind me at the downstream take-out. Looking at the river easing its way downstream from the grassy parking lot felt otherworldly from the pavement left behind. It was a good place to be. After welcome greetings and an uncommon efficiency, we were soon back to our starting point and on the water.

The river was low, slow, and dirty -- the color of my maple dining room chairs. We couldn’t see bottom in water much over a foot deep. I’d fished this stretch before, and in an effort to prepare Tony I mentioned the first part of the float can be kind of slow fishing. With Tony on the oars, I started casting my deer-hair Dahlberg and hooked and landed the first smallmouth of the day barely a hundred feet from the boat launch! Tony dropped oars to stand and cast and we boated two nice bass in sight of the dock. Tony’s dog, Chester the pointer was along and appeared impressed. The largest bass of the day attacked my fly just past the first bend and Tony mentioned this could make someone’s day, that we could row back to the truck and be satisfied. Of course, we didn’t do that. But I had to eat my words about a slow start.

Despite low water the color of light chocolate, the fishing was fine. So was the catching, with good-sized smallmouth bass hitting with regularity. And the takes came in a variety of ways. Everyone loves the explosive, splashing topwater strikes bass are known for, and we enjoyed plenty of those. I had one hit at the end of my best cast that I first thought was a pike, as the bass porpoised out of the water next to my fly and came down on it from above. And there were the subtle, less aggressive takes from below, sort of like a trout sipping a dry fly off the surface but more workmanlike -- not so much a sip as a slurp, the way a man might slurp at a newly opened can of beer that’s foaming out the pop-top.

The low flowage exposed before hidden sandbars and rocks, offering a different view of the river, and different targets to cast to. I was taken by the sight of groups of large snapping turtles sunning at the edge of the sand, only to run as only turtles can, into the river at our approach. It would remind you of crocodiles entering a water hole in Africa. Much of the river feels that wild.

We were close to two miles from the take-out when Tony lowered his new electric trolling motor into the water for a pleasant ride out.  On the river for ten hours, we were both tired, hungry, and satisfied. The final sight of a momma bear with three cubs was icing on the cake. 

The bar/grill filled us with supper, then back to camp. I don’t think we could have stayed awake for a second beer, so I crawled into my tent and tony climbed into his trucktop penthouse.

In the morning we filled up with coffee and more stories before packing up and heading home. Livin’ large and happy for it!