Did I forget to tear a page off my calendar? Is it really 91-degrees? My cell phone weather app says to expect temperatures in the upper 80s for the next five days. Is my cell-service coming from somewhere in the tropics?
Today is officially the first day of autumn and I expect summer to be “packed-up and moved-out”. Summer 2017 has been cruel to me and I promise not to miss her…at least until the first ice storm of January.
Two days ago, as I baked on the glassy-calm surface of Lake Lanier, it was 94-degrees (according to the temperature gauge in my boat), but that was understandable - it was still summer and I should not expect less.
But today is fall; officially, at 4:02 a.m. this morning, summer ended, and I expect nature to behave like it.
Summer 2017 has caused, make that forced, me to be more adaptable than ever, and old guys like me hate change.
I have seen over-and-over again schools of herring pass alongside my boat, just beneath the surface, not concerned that my boat was inches from their line of travel, moving at warp speed, being chased by large arches that flash across my sonar display.
Stripers, probably, with large spotted bass mixed in, as well. How do you catch a speeding bullet?
If a man is fortunate enough to get his bait into the frenetic action taking place over 100-feet of water, he can catch a nice bass. But fishing during the summer of 2017 has been more akin to playing a wild video game than a leisure-time sport. I’m out of breath, and way-more sun burned than I should be, as well.
Whatever happened to the bass-fishing techniques I learned forty ago when I first began fishing Lake Lanier?
A man (or woman, sorry ladies) would slowly inch along the shoreline, dunking a jig next to a stump, or skipping a finesse worm way back into the dark recesses of an old boat dock?
In those days my favorite rod was 5’6” long. It was perfect for getting my bait between the deteriorating Styrofoam blocks of a neglected boat house and into the face of a giant largemouth.
Now I spend my time floating a quarter-mile off the bank and holding a rod that probably makes me look like an Olympic pole vaulter. I have one rod that has “8-4” etched on the side: that’s 100-inches of graphite if my math is correct! What is going on?
That rod will cast a Super Spook a mile; two-miles if the line breaks. I have gone through a carton of chrome Super Spooks this summer and need to get more.
Charles Darwin is not someone I quote often, but I think he must have been an avid bass angler because he said, “Adapt or die”…and that kind of wisdom can only come to someone trying to catch a fish.
