Many of my trips back to my hometown in Maine have started off with a simple ritual where I show up at my parents' house, give them a hug during which I pickpocket their car keys, and then drive off to go bass fishing in one of my favorite old ponds. This time I was a little more polite than that, partly because I wanted to spend some quality time with the folks, and partly because a flight that arrives in Trenton at 3:30 really doesn't allow enough time to put together a kayak and get staged up for fishing. I did in fact fish every other night of the trip, three times yakking and twice in my old canoe with my buddy Stroutster, who has become the Custodian of the Canoe. This canoe:
That picture was taken just last night during a really fun trip to a little pond that the Custodian and I have been fishing for (jeezus!) over 30 years now. Miraculously, it still fishes well, despite certain observations made by a grumpy old feller who owns one of the few little cabins on the north shore . . . you see, he told us by way of a greeting, "there ain't any fish in this pond." Suggesting perhaps we might go elsewhere, sir? Good luck with that one. The truest fortune cookie I ever got at China Hill said, "You are a person who loves to do what people say can't be done."
So we made a point to hoot and holler as loud as could be when I had a bass jumping around on the line before the clock even struck five. A plan was mooted (and quickly tabled) to leave that old feller a nice big pickerel on his doorstep when we left. We are immature, yes, but not quite that bad anymore.
Stroutster is an old-school bait man and hardware-flinger, but it turns out that he had never taken a fish on a topwater lure before last night. After watching me catch a couple bass on poppers and hook pickerel (esox niger) right and left with the same fly (with the pickerel tracking it in their cool way with a little wake, and then slashing at it their unsubtle, adrenaline-splashing manner), Stroutser switched to a hula popper he had in the tackle box. Cast cast cast -- but that was not the popper destined to pop a man's topwater cherry. No strikes. When it became clear they didn't want to hula, we instead tied on a zara spook and verified an important fact: they love that weird shit. Witness:
I really wanted to get the strike on camera, but a few leaps will have to do:
The air was already getting decidedly autumn-like in Maine over the past week, making for lovely cool conditions and magical late dusks with lots of vapor rolling off the surface of the water as you paddle back to the launch under headlamp light. Fortunately, the water (which of course has higher thermal inertia than atmospheric air, as we all appreciate) was still warm enough that topwater was ON. I took a few greenish balsa poppers with weed guards, fished them 90% of the time, and brought them back today with literally no paint left on them. That's how Maine State Micropertizing should be, I figure.
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