Fisher of Fish

When I was a young teen, a farm pond was most likely going to freeze dry over winter and so my family obtained a seine and drug it through the knee deep water. We drug out a lot of bullheads which we cleaned and ate and also a number of bass which we put in buckets and transferred to another larger farm pond that we had. What had always been a bluegill pond, slowly transformed into a bass pond and the bass grew quite large. Although I never fished there often over the years, it was nice to catch some of those big bass and toss them back in for someone else to catch. I was content to eat the smaller bass and the bluegill.

Now, decades later, the outflow pipe to that pond has rusted out below the bed of the pond causing the water to spill out to that level. What was probably six feet deep or more in the middle is now maybe two feet deep and the pond is a tiny fraction of it's original size. Essentially the pond is unfixable at this point without fully draining it and at that point, it would probably be cheaper just to build a new one. But for some reason, thoughts of fishing it in the past came to my mind and for the first time in probably five plus years, I thought perhaps I should go down and fish it one last time if it wasn't already too late. However, this time, there was no sense in tossing the fish back for someone else to catch because there might not be a next time.

I tossed my lure in the water and a large bass immediately struck it but as I was reeling it in, it got away. That was maybe one of a half dozen misses I had for the next thirty minutes where I reeled in a lure instead of a fish. All my other casts resulted in a large bass hooked on the other end. I kept the largest of them and threw the smaller pan sized ones back. Thirty minutes after my first cast, I had more than I cared to clean and called it a day.

What a treat it was to fish those bass. At least three, maybe four times, I could see a bow wave of a rapidly moving object heading towards my lure just beneath the water's surface before it struck. I'm not sure I have ever seen that before outside of a submarine about to break the surface in a movie scene. 

I spent the rest of my morning when I got back home cleaning the fish. I filleted them so they are boneless for eating later. Per my wife's directions, I degilled the heads and saved those. Back in her native country, fish head soup is a delicacy. I like eating the broth, veggies and scraps of fish meat in her fish head soup but she really likes eating the eyes. I have never fought her for them. Too late, I found out I was supposed to save the bones which I had already tossed out to compost. She said they would make good fish broth and indeed they would have. Next time.

It was such fun, I think I might see if I can convince my wife and girls to go with me the next time. I know by doing so, I won't be able to fish as I will be busy untangling, unhooking and just keep the other three lines catching fish. But I've had my fun and it would be nice to see my wife and daughters experience a similar joy of hooking onto a large bass. 

Below was part of supper that night. Pan seared bass with a lemon butter sauce.