I should have seen it coming.
I was in the back of Jim Bell's boat fishing with Bell and Bob Snider of Roland when a friend sent me a text message. I'll skip the artful setup, but the gist of it was that she had just tested positive for covid. I dined with her and her family the night before, and now I was in a small boat with a pair of older gentlemen. Suffice it to say that this news did not elate my partners.
"April FOOL!" she texted a few minutes later, followed by a phone call to rub it in.
"These gentlemen will be very happy to hear your good news," I grumbled.
"It's a stretch to call us gentlemen," Snider said.
I don't think it is a stretch at all. It takes a great amount of gentility for three people to remain collegial while fishing in a War Eagle 1542, especially when two continually crossed rods while casting or snatch each other's line. Not a single cross word was spoken, even when the entire trip teetered on the precipice of abortion at its outset.
The fuse lit at 6 a.m. when Snider stopped at a convenience store to get coffee. The doors were locked, and the attendant refused to let him in. The next caffeine stop was at Carlisle, but Snider refused to join the long line at the register. Any caffeine addict knows that a splitting headache will arrive at about noon.
We arrived at Roc-Roe Farm near Stuttgart about an hour later. The farm has a lot of beautiful lakes that are full of giant largemouth bass, including our destination, Forty-Acre Lake. Some of the lakes also have crappie, but not Forty-Acre Lake. It has redear sunfish, but not many bluegill.
"What do bass have to eat in this lake?" I asked.
"That's a really good question," replied Bell, who has been a member of Roc-Rowe Farm for 40 years.
"That means he joined when he was 10 years old," Snider deadpanned.
"That's right. I joined when I was 10," Bell said.
We do not know Bell's exact age, but it's a few latitudes north of 50.
Fortunately for Snider, the refrigerator in Bell's cabin was stocked with Coca-Cola. Snider's caffeine crisis was averted, and his mood improved immeasurably.
We hooked Bell's boat to Snider's truck and drove toward Forty-Acre Lake.
"What kind of shape is the ramp in?" Snider asked.
"Well, it's not much of one," Bell replied dryly.
"I take it that means there isn't a ramp," Snider said.
"It's a spot," Bell said. "It's a pretty good spot to launch a boat."
"A pretty good spot, but not a real good spot, I take it," Snider said
It might have been a really good spot any other time, but the ground was very soft because of the recent rains. Snider's truck dug into the mud and was in danger of getting stuck. We had to disconnect the boat and return to the cabin to get Bell's Polaris 6-wheeled utility vehicle. The UTV did not want to start.
"I'm afraid that this is all on me," I said while Snider watched Bell toil with quiet dismay. "This is a classic Bryan Hendricks meltdown."
"No, it's all on Jim," Snider said. "I've never had a fishing trip with him when something was not screwing up."
Eventually, the Polaris started. Minutes later, the War Eagle was afloat with a full complement of eager and excited passengers. The mood threatened to sour as Bell struggled to get his remote controlled trolling motor working. A few yanks and tugs on some wires and a relay in the stern got us underway.
Our first stop was a cove that Bell said produces a lot of 7- to 9-pound bass.
"Come summer, this place will be slam full of lily pads but right now, when it's just stalks, they love it in here," Bell said.
I cast a big purple worm toward a brush top and slowly worked it between a cluster of lily pad stalks. I felt a thump, and the line went limp. I reeled in the slack, pointed the rod at the worm's last known location and whipped my shoulders around. The hook set on a fish of substantial weight. It pulled back and snapped my line.
A long dry spell followed us around the entire lake. Snider finally broke the drought when he caught a chunky largemouth that hit a chartreuse H&H spinnerbait.
"I catch all my fish on H&H spinnerbaits," Snider said, "because that's all I use."
Shortly after, I caught a similar size bass on a Berkeley Powerbait swimbait. Snider caught another, and then I caught one. Snider caught a third bass, and then he caught one that weighed about 3 pounds.
"That's the big fish of the day, so far, and that's also four to two," Snider said.
I evened the score with two fish back to back.
"All these little buck bass are probably tending nests, which means the females might have already spawned and moved back out," I said.
"I can't believe that, not with the water as cold as it is," Bell said.
Another long drought ensued. All day I showed amazing accuracy by dead-centering lily pad stalks. It ceaselessly amazes me that a hook needs only to touch a lily pad stalk to snag. You can yank a hook in a bass's maw with all your might and still catch only water.
The cast of the day was into a fork of high branches in a tree.
"It's hard to catch one that high, but when you do, it's always a big one," Bell said.
"I can get that back," I said.
"No way!" Bell argued.
He maneuvered the boat under the tree. With my rod tip, I deftly unthreaded the line's self-made web and then lifted the lure free.
"We've just witnessed a miracle," Snider said. "He got his bait back, and he didn't fall in the water. It's still too early to celebrate nobody falling in the water, but if it didn't happen right there, I feel safe in saying it probably won't."
With the score deadlocked at 4-4, we headed for the open space on the bank that Bell calls a ramp. Snider made one last cast.
"Anybody want to catch the last fish?" Snider asked, setting the hook on the tie-breaking bass.
Despite its beginnings as a classic April Fool's prank, a half-day's trip produced nine bass on a cold, windy bluebird day in the wake of a cold front. Nobody got wet, nobody got hooked, and nobody got a caffeine-deprived headache. We call that a keeper.