My best friend of 30 years, Ken Powell, and I will readily claim to be duck hunters, but will shy away from the title of fisherman. We regularly hunt ducks on Beaver Lake, or "sky gaze" which is more accurate for hunting ducks in Northwest Arkansas.
We actually have the right equipment now, which is a huge improvement from when we used Ken's blue and white ski boat, covered with a military parachute, as a duck boat and blind.
Thinking we might like to qualify as fishermen, May 31, 1986, found Ken and me on Beaver Lake using Ken's ski boat as our bass rig. We figured a trolling motor on the front would put it in the same class as a Ranger. Ken put us in a good spot, which was not unlike any other spot on the huge lake as far as I could tell.
Since Ken was more adept with tackle, he immediately began to fish, making multiple casts in all directions while I fought a hairball of tangles in my line. After what seemed like a life sentence, I finally cleared my line and selected my choice of baits -- a big black spinner bait with a huge plastic frog attached to the single hook.
Holding the rig rigidly at attention, I boldly announced to Ken and the world that here was my first cast of 1986. It was probably more like the first cast of the 1980s.
I made a cast in a direction that looked fishy. I felt satisfied, satisfied that I had not hit Ken or the tall windshield of the ski boat with my lure. Immediately I felt it bump into an obstruction and knew I was hung up. As a non-fisherman, one thing I know for sure is the feel of being hung up, so I began to yammer on about being hung up on the first cast of 1986.
After pulling and trying to get un-hung for a minute or so, I realized my line seemed to be moving through the water. That was odd. I'd never experienced a hang-up that moved much. I brought the oddity to Ken's attention, thinking maybe the ski boat, our bass rig, was moving.
Ken, being the astute angler he is, sized up the situation. "You're hung up." It became evident to both of us that the hang-up was indeed moving and bending my rod of its own volition.
A real sense of pride and excitement roused the primordial hunter-gatherer (fisher) instincts in us. We immediately set upon a team task of boating this thing that had me hung up. After a fearsome fish fight, we finally netted the fish and pulled it over the high sides of our now officially christened bass rig.
It turned out to be an actual black bass that weighed 5 pounds, 14 ounces, a beautiful fish that outweighed by five times any of my previous scale-bearing trophies. It had one flaw. It was completely missing an eye.
Of course, a half blind fish caused huge speculation as to the authenticity of my newly-earned title of fisherman.
"Could it be," asked Mr. Powell, "that your fish saw the dim image of your spinner bait and frog combo, which actually resembles Rod Stewart, and got tangled on the hook as it rolled with laughter?"
With the catching of it, I was able to experience many "firsts" in my life. I was able to hold a big bass by the lower lip as I'd seen Virgil Ward do on TV so many times when I was a kid. I've been able to swagger a bit and say, "Yeah, I caught a 6-pounder once." Even if it only had one eye.
And finally, I was able to enter the fish story contest without even being a fisherman.
Outdoors on 06/19/2014