The placid early morning surface erupted like a cauldron reaching a sudden boil.
The submarine marauders had come from out of nowhere. With merciless ferocity they drove their quarry into utter panic; prisoners would not be taken; only the swiftest – and luckiest– would survive.
No, it’s not a scene from Remarque’s All Is Quiet on the Western Front. Rather this incident is better suited to a story out of “Field & Stream”; a scene that would be repeated a half-dozen more times before the early morning fog had been totally dispatched by the mid-September sunrise.
The bass were schooling, feeding in ravenous precision, on the huge populations of blueback herring that roamed just beneath the surface of Lake Chatuge.
The bass had banded together for the purpose of more-efficient hunting, an instinct set in place by their Creator thousands of years earlier, and for a time of communal gorging before the upcoming winter would make feeding more difficult.
Others took advantage of the carnage: dozens of sea gulls hovered overhead, watching for a wounded herring to seek the shelter of the reservoir’s surface; loons dove loudly into the school of baitfish thrashing wildly just beneath their webbed feet; and fishermen, such as me, scrambled clumsily to cast a lure into the center of the activity.
Many anglers refer to this chaos as “combat fishing”. I’ve experienced it hundreds of times, but this time would be memorable: memorable because of the electrical pang that shot into my spinal column because I had over-zealously attempted to join the action without considering sane bio-mechanics.
Twisting to grab my casting rod and unleash a long distance cast before the surface feeding came to an end blinded me to the fact that I’m no longer a spry young fisherman. Wisdom that should be the hallmark of someone my age never presented itself as I was solely focused on responding quickly to the visible attraction.
In a few months my fishing rod would be replaced by a set of crutches. My time on the lake would relinquish itself to time spent in a recliner. Pursuing bass would become an activity superseded by a quest for a comfortable position, one that minimized the ceaseless burning pain in my torso.
Maintaining this fishing blog now takes a backseat to visits to neuro-surgeons, chiropractors, pain specialists and orthopedic clinics.
I long to get back on the water – the spawn is weeks away – yet I know that with-or-without me the fishing will be spectacular. Henceforth, my go-to tactic won’t be a particular bait or location, but a slower and more careful enjoyment of the privilege I have been given to spend time plying the waters of north Georgia.
As a famous Bavarian bodybuilder/android once said, “I’ll be back.”
