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I CAN ALWAYS FIND TIME
FOR OLD FRIENDS
By: Ron Wilson
September 25, 2008.... Dr. Quen Young of
San Francisco recently made another one of his frequent treks
over
the hill to the valley to do a little bass fishing.
His arrival time was at 9 a.m., banker’s
hours to me! By the time we arrived at the private pond it would be 10
a.m.
With the almost full moon showing all
night long I told Doc that the fishing would probably be tougher than
normal. We launched and Secretary Ron Fisher came over to meet us and
said he had been there since first light and the bite was tough. He
reported a few top water fish before the sun hit the water and then the
bite just died for him.
One thing I like about the pond is that
it seems to change weekly. One week it will be stained water, the next
week clear. One week there will be mill foil weeds floating all over the
top of the water and the next almost none. One week the weeds are matted
in clumps and the next they seem to have grown a foot and gotten thicker
and the next week they seem to be dying. The pond changes amaze me as
much as the fish do in their ever changing taste for different colored
baits and their styles of presentation.
Two of the best baits this year has been
a 6 inch margarita mutilator and a 4 inch spring break worm. Today they
weren’t working for us. The water was gin clear so I switched to a salt
and pepper Keeper 6 inch worm and was quickly rewarded with a fish.
 "I
think I have found a pattern Doc", I said. I switched his bait to a salt
and pepper and we started catching fish. No monsters but some nice
chunks up to 4 pounds.
Around 2 p.m. I did a little flipping and
I finally hooked the gal I have been fishing for all year long. She bent
my stick double as she peeled out some line and then I stopped her
momentarily when I thumbed the reel only to have her rip off another 5
or 6 feet going deeper in the weeds. She seemed to switched directions
down below and evidently got the 25 pound mono line over her front teeth
as she took off in another direction busting my line. I was a little
upset, hell that cost me a ten dollar bill, 9 for the weight and $1 for
the hook and I never got to even see her. The bottom line is that I
know she is still there and getting bigger for me to try to catch next
year.
At 3 p.m. we called it a day as we had to
head back to town to take my 94 year old mother out for dinner.
Doc had a ball talking to my mother Ruby and said that from now on
whenever he came over to visit that we would be coming over to get her
to take her out to eat.
Sunday we arrived back at the pond and
the fish still were not hitting top water. Doc scored first with a small
bass and then he had another one just eat his 12 pound test line. Doc
caught a few more as we headed back to the dam where he stuck one in the
7 pound class. I was catching a fish every now and then but Doc was
kicking my butt today and a lot of them were quality.
The day before there were honkers in
every cove and there must have been about 500 of them on the pond.
That’s one thing I really like about the pond and all its wildlife in,
on and above the water. There seems to always be ducks, geese and swans
on the pond to enjoy as well as a pair of ospreys that are busy
fishing.The highlight of bird watching today for us was when a killdeer
was being chased by a sparrow hawk. The little bird made several darting
circling escapes around the boat as the hawk dived on it but when the
bird went over to a couple nearby oak trees dived between them it was
all over, the bird thought it was safe in the air between the trees and
the hawk came down threw the branches and caught his prey in midflight
as Quen and I watched. I told Quen, "that's something you don't see
everyday. Mother Nature
and her law of survival".
The
catch and release policy
seems to leave plenty of fish to catch and plenty of fish to take care
of mother natures needs in the area also.
By 10 a.m. the bite had pretty much died
and by 11 a.m. with just 25 bass caught I loaded the boat so that Dr.
Young could get back to San Francisco in time to cook his oldest
daughter a birthday dinner.
A big old redneck Texan and a Chinese
doctor that have became very close friends over the years. I have
personally never figured that one out except that the old saying that
"opposites seem to attract" seems to be the case here. That’s me and
Doctor Young, he will be off to
Mexico and Hawaii
vacationing now as I head to Wyoming and then
duck hunting until February but don’t be surprised if we don’t
find time to chase a fish and do a fishing report between now and then
as my Doc don’t hunt. |
