the Walnut Diary

Family members and friends find it quaint that I still place great stock in Opening Day of Bass Fishing. I’m not normally sentimental about holidays, but this one sticks with me. Like the time Charlie and I spent the morning rowing all around Don Warren’s Bay on Opinicon Lake in our dinghy and didn’t get a nibble. Then, while I was warming a can of beef stew for lunch in the galley of WYBMADIITY II, Charlie caught a 3 1/2 pound largemouth off the stern, right along the 48 hour dock at Chaffey’s Lock. Before the school moved on, we had caught and released another twenty largemouths, the largest a strapping 5 pounds.

Opening Day of Bass Fishing is the most unpredictable fishing day of the year. Tony Izatt used to host derbies off his dock for about a half-dozen teams. One year young John Steele and a lady friend who had never fished before were able to select their six entries from over thirty fish they had caught while drifting down the middle of Clear Lake. Why the genius strategy? John’s trolling motor wasn’t working and he didn’t want his derby partner to hang a lure up in the trees.

Then there was the time thunderstorms were in the offing, so Les and I spent most of the morning sitting on the deck at Indian Lake Marina, eating ice cream.
When it cleared we drifted down the bay and I caught a single largemouth big enough to win the derby that year. But the trip back to the dock was a challenge on this or perhaps another derby. Memories run together. When we cleared the islands for the final half-mile run to the dock, the rain made visibility the closest to zero I have ever seen on a lake. Les held my parka so that I had a slit of vision, and we made it back in time for weigh-in. Then we stood on the dock in relative shelter while watching the other teams blunder their way up the lake. We could see perfectly well, but they couldn’t. That time, as I recall, Earl and Paul drifted in on plane from the other direction –Pollywog Lake — with a boatful of fish to win the tournament.

This year nothing worked right in the organization, particularly the weather. After determinedly stating that I would not fish before 9:00, I had in fact boated four and was off the lake by 8:00. The promised torrent of rain failed to appear, though it was a wind of biblical proportions which tucked me into my slip at about noon today. The dock was holding well, and by now we know how to tie a boat.

I did manage to catch six plump largemouth bass for Father’s Day Lunch tomorrow. Of course nobody pays much attention to that holiday.