YELLVILLE -- A cup of coffee told the tale of Tuesday's fishing trip on Crooked Creek.
I bought it at the Yellville Sonic at about 7 a.m., about 15 minutes before Rusty Pruitt, my son Matthew and I drove to the Fred Berry Conservation Education Center for a day of wade fishing on Crooked Creek.
Forgoing my morning caffeine triggers a skull-splitting headache that starts sometime around noon. I set the cup aside to cool. I was so excited that I forgot to drink it, but the headache never came.
A smallmouth stream has that kind of medicinal power.
We stopped fishing about 2 p.m. when the sun was blistering bright.
As I strapped on my seatbelt, I noticed the coffee cup in the cup holder. I lifted the lid and tilted the rim lightly to my lips. After all, cold coffee is almost as bad as no coffee.
It was still hot.
Well, of course it was. The temperature was well over 100 degrees in the truck.
The bass fishing was even hotter.
In most years we will have fished several streams by early June, but all the rain and flooding over the past few weeks spoiled all of our prior attempts. When the opportunity finally arose to visit Crooked Creek, we didn't hesitate.
The creek was gorgeous. It was a little higher and faster than usual, but the water was clear and clean. I wore shorts, a T-shirt and flats wading boots, and I regretted not bringing my waders when I first entered the water. It was very cold initially, but only for a little while. After a few minutes, it was the perfect foil for the heat and humidity.
As is his custom, Matthew beat us to the water by a good 15 minutes. When I caught up to him, he was fishing a side pool that always contains small bass and sunfish when the water is high enough to flow through it. He caught several tiny smallmouths before I wet a line.
We fished Zoom Tiny Brush Hawgs in pumpkinseed/red flake. Small fish in the sidewaters bit them, but they didn't get the quality of bites we sought in fast water. I switched to a Zoom Tiny Lizard in the same color, but fish didn't want that, either.
Pruitt, meanwhile, arrived on the scene with his fly fishing rig. He used a black lead-eye leech, and he started catching fish immediately. They were 10-12 inches long, but still not the caliber fish that one expects on Crooked Creek.
Bill Eldridge of Benton is usually part of this group, but he was in New York on business. Pruitt texted him photos of the bass and scenics of the creek. Eldridge's replies were distraught, with veiled accusations of betrayal and disloyalty.
The three of us ascended into the next pool above a rapid that crashed through a narrow cut. The water was deep and smooth there, but it was still swift. The south bank looks like a page from a smallmouth textbook with big rocks on the bank, logs and rootwads in the water and stretches of boulders and chunk rock on the bottom. I'm certain bass were there, but they didn't want the pumpkin/red soft-plastics.
I switched to a Zoom Tiny Lizard in junebug color, and that adjustment paid immediate dividends. Bass bit almost every cast, but I could tell by feel they were small fish. They grab the lizards tail and tug rapidly.
I didn't set the hook on those, but occasionally I felt a thump instead of a tugging. That's the way bigger fish hit.
When wade fishing, I like to cast upstream. Curiously, I got more bites from downstream as I swam the lizard high against the current. They were, again, 10- to 12-inch fish. They start getting interesting at about 14 inches, but those fish weren't biting.
At least, not for me.
Way upstream, around the bend and out of sight, I heard Pruitt's voice.
"Brain!" he shouted. Because that's what he calls me.
I ignored him.
"Brain!" Pruitt bellowed louder.
Annoyed, I turned to Matthew and muttered unkindnesses.
Pruitt yelled louder, with increasing urgency, so I relented and went to check on him. I'm glad I did. He held a beautiful 15-inch smallmouth with bronze flanks and black barring.
Sprinting upstream in gravel against swift water is excellent exercise, and I had a nice little thigh burn working. Pruitt obviously had the hot hand, so I said, "Let's all stay closer together so I don't have to run as far next time you catch one."
"Sure thing, Brain," Pruitt said.
Then he promptly disappeared far around the next bend.
Dissatisfied with the results I got from the junebug lizard, I made the day's final adjustment by switching to a black Tiny Lizard with red flake. It looked good on the bottom, more of a silhouette with a subtle flash of red versus the garish glow of the junebug. I didn't get as nearly many bites, but the bites were all bigger.
About the time we turned to go back to the truck, two anglers in kayaks floated past. They were using white plastic jerkbaits. One said his biggest fish was 15-16 inches. The other guy said he caught one that was 18 inches.
"I got a lot of bites early, but not much in the last hour," I said.
"It's just the opposite for us," the kayakers said. "We didn't catch anything all morning, but the last couple of hours have been awesome."
As I walked downstream, the tableau before me made me stop. I stood in the middle of a sparkling blue creek that wound through the green hills like a ribbon in a young girl's hair. Above it all was an azure sky on which thick, puffy clouds hung like pictures on a wall. The clouds appeared to have black, 3D borders, like the bow numerals on a warship.
I drank it in like mead.
Then I lifted my sunglasses, and the whole scene melted into a hazy summer whitewash.
The world always looks better through polarized shades.
And when you really need a caffeine jolt, coffee that has stewed in a truck all day tastes pretty darned good.
Sports on 06/14/2015