For the Love of Bass Part Deux

Only mere hours separated our red eye small mouth run and our midnight dash southbound.  I planned on sleeping on my Kelty air bed in the camper of my truck bed, after an hour or so high beams and loud chatter drew my out of my slumber.  With only an hour of sleep, jello legs and road buzz, we were asking for another long hot grueling day.

I was rigged with three rods this time around.  My Sage Bass for throwing a big Dahlberg diver, TCX 7wt for punching my 330gr outbound short long range.  And a 6wt with floating line and a small mouse pattern.  My first fast ball thrown at me was within' the first 15 minutes of fishing. Still under the cover of night, I chose to fish a large diver fly to create a resonating pattern in the upper water column.  After a few dives, I let my fly settle on the surface.  A terrifying surface blow up nearly made my heart stop.  I pulled the trigger too slow and missed my shot at a largemouth lunker.

Several more takes were taken on my diver, yet nothing on the magnitude of the first one.  I couldn't manage to get any to stick on this fly.  Perhaps it was the weed guard, but most likely it was my poor reflexes.  It was a mistake to compromise this trip with lack of rest.  I switched out the Bass rod and decided to throw mice.  After what felt like 100 casts, I finally find a large mouth ready to rumble.  Not a large fish, but enough to make the 6wt dance with joy.  My first fish on a mouse pattern.

By now, the sun has risen over the crest and the topwater bite turned off like a light switch.  I grabbed the 7wt and headed toward the center of the lake.  It looked like bombs were exploding in the distance like there was a war going on.  The bass were leaping on the school of baitfish, it was a blitzkrieg.  Explosion after explosion, cast after cast, fish after fish.  It was fly fishing nirvana.  Never have I experienced anything like it.  Bombing casts into the frenzy and stripping shad patterns warp speed back to the boat guaranteed a pull.  The next four hours was high bore adrenaline pumping bass on the fly action.  We were up in the triple digits as our catch rate never seemed to slow down.  None were monsters, but all were respectable sized bass in the 2-3lb range.

We left the lake with bass thumb and the muscle memory of the bass tug.  Until next year...