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fish in the state next to the 30-inch pike I had caught earlier that month.
Lake No. 7 and 8 reminds me of places I have fished back home in Tennessee. Covered in moss, and with stumps and fallen trees throughout, the lake challenges every angler to cast around the structure and to keep a fish hooked after it strikes. Anglers lose a fair share of fish at Lake No. 7 and 8. But, there, you're fishing for the strike, to see the fish.
When I began accessing the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission web site, outdoornebraska.org, I found electrofishing surveys that biologists had conducted at a number of lakes, including Fremont Lake No. 16. It had the highest concentration of big bass at this SRA. But having battled the wind and sun on No. 16, the thought of such a lunker drew me to take a look nearby.
"What do you think?" Rich asked, as I scanned the lake through my binoculars from the truck.
Even though Lake No. 7 and 8 is down in a deep hole, from my vantage point, it looked too windy for the johnboat. But, like many times before, I tossed my analytical, left-brain idea out the door, and said, "Let's do it."
Rich nodded emphatically, "I'm with you."
We dropped the johnboat into clear water. I pointed out the spot where I had caught the pike a month earlier, and told Rich to beat the area to death with his frog-colored crankbait.
Then, something amazing happened. The wind suddenly died, disappearing as if someone had turned off a loud, annoying fan. Then, a layer of dark, almost ominous clouds covered the sun. I made a long, celebratory cast near a fallen treetop protruding from the water, almost putting my weedless scum frog on land. The lure rested on the water momentarily. I twitched my wrist, and the lure jerked ever so slightly. Then the calm water around the lure turned into a thunderous current and the frog disappeared. I jerked back, but found the line at a standstill. The bass had run behind a stump and I could feel it shaking its head back and forth. I kept the rod tip high, trying to coax the fish over a log without ripping the hook from its mouth.
The bass cleared the log. I raised my rod tip higher, trying to keep the fish out of the underwater vegetation without pulling it out of the water. But, it broke the water surface anyway. As the bass threw its head from side to side in the air, I reeled as fast as I could, making sure I gave the fish no slack during its aerial maneuvers. The bass crashed back into the water, surfaced again, then went back under.
When I finally landed it, Rich asked, "What will he go?"
"About three pounds," I said.
"Do you think things could be looking up?" he asked.
"If that sun stays behind the clouds. With last night being the only rain we've gotten in awhile, we could catch some fish." I looked up. The layer of clouds seemed to be thinning and looked as if they might open again.
We moved to the next fallen tree. My lure hit, and a fish jumped, clearing the water, and struck my scum frog on its way back into the water. I sat down and fought it all the way back. The bass measured 16 inches, an inch shorter than the first one. At the next log, Rich caught a plump 15-inch bass.
"They will be at every log," I told Rich, and on that day for the next hour, I wasn't exaggerating. We probed deadfall after deadfall, allowing the scum frog baits to dip into every crevice we could find. And almost every time, we found ourselves holding on as soon as the ripples had cleared.
I hooked another bass and it cleared the water, contorting its body. As the fish went back in, I battled it mentally as much as I did with my arms and wrists. Out of the moss. Pull up gently. Away from that log. Catch up to it, catch up. Out of the moss.
The big bass gave me a clear shot near the boat, and I went at it as if I were going to punch him in the mouth and grabbed his lower lip with four fingers. You cannot go at a big fish with the thought of thumbing it.
As I snatched the fish from the water, I turned to Rich and saw glee in his eyes.
"That's a big boy," he said. The bass weighed five pounds, measured 22 inches long and was kind enough to pause for photographs.
"Are you going to keep him?" asked Rich.
"No. I'm going to keep the first fish we caught for dinner tonight. I have no use for this fish. Let someone else catch him."
We released the bass, and started on the other side of the lake with more success.
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