If not for contrary proof on ice, the fishing might have seemed pretty poor July 23.
My partner was Worth Gibson of Little Rock, a financial manager that I met during a duck hunt in December at this same cypress reservoir near DeWitt. It was an old-school Arkansas summer outing, from our gear to the weather to the setting.
Our boat was an aluminum flatbottom with a 9.9-horsepower Yamaha 4-stroke outboard. OK, a 4-stroke isn't traditional, but this one doesn't have an electric start. You have to yank the rope.
The boat was barely long enough for us to make sidearm casts without whacking each other's heads. It only took a few close calls to establish trust, and after that we didn't give it a thought.
The heat was oppressive, and the duckweed-coated water contributed to what already was excessive humidity.
The scene was almost primeval. There was no evidence of humanity, no road noise and no aircraft.
We crammed that little boat full of tackle because this lake has a lot of big bream, crappie and, of course, largemouth bass. The owner restocked it a few years ago after an anoxic period killed the entire fishery. Instead of stocking fingerling bass, the owner stocked catchable-size Florida strain largemouths, and the lake now sustains a good population of 8-pound and larger bass.
We had plastic worms and lizards, jigs and all sorts of trailers, spinnerbaits, buzzbaits, and all manner of crappie baits. We agreed to give the bass a couple of hours to bite before shifting to crappie.
Gibson set the tone by throwing a big buzzbait with a blade the size of a ceiling fan. It sounded like a B-29 bomber taking off when it whizzed past my head. The time was about 10 a.m.
"Think they'll hit buzzbaits this time of day?" I asked.
"Oh, yeah," Gibson said. "We tore them up out here the other day when it was just like this."
"Famous last words," I said. "You should have been here yesterday."
Gibson laughed, and he laughed even louder a few minutes later when a 2-pound largemouth smashed his buzzbait at the boat as he was about to lift for another cast.
My buzzbait was the same size, and was white with a green skirt. Gibson's buzzbait was white with a white skirt. We kept pace -- bass for bass -- for the next three hours. All of the fish were about the same size, but all of Gibson's fish hit violently on the surface, including two or three others that hit at the side of the boat.
All of my bass hit very softly. My first fish hit when I stopped the lure and disengaged the spool to pull out a high loop. The bait slipped beneath the surface, and the fish hit before it resurfaced when I resumed my retrieve.
All of my strikes were in that vein until we reached the levee at the end of the lake. A wide fringe of grass extends about 20 yards from the levee, and bass hovered in the shade at the edge of the weeds. They hit soft plastic Mann's Mosquito Hawks as we pulled them off the edge of the grass.
Because of the heat and low water oxygen, none of the fish fought hard after their initial surge.
Around 1 p.m., we could no longer stand the heat and humidity. A chicken salad sandwich at the Bullpen in DeWitt was the perfect remedy for me, but Gibson had a bacon cheeseburger. The only remedy for him was a nap back at the lodge.
We returned to the water about 5 p.m., after a thunderstorm passed.
The temperature fell about 10-12 degrees, and we continued to pick up a buzzbait bass every 20 minutes or so. It was about then that Gibson caught the biggest fish of the day, a 4-pound largemouth. It mouthed Gibson's buzzbait for about 15 seconds, chewing it and spitting it before finally engulfing it 15 seconds later.
Minutes later, I caught one of my biggest bluegill on, yes, a ½-ounce buzzbait.
At dusk, I switched to a Booyah floating frog and got a lot of hits, but my 10-pound test line was too light to set the hook, and I missed all but one fish.
When it was over, our cooler contained nearly two limits, and that didn't include all the fish we threw back.
I guess we spent so much time talking and goofing around that we didn't notice how good the fishing really was.
Sports on 07/31/2016