Plugging Along

I’ve been hearing the frogs in the swamp peeping and croaking since January this year. On warmer mornings and evenings there is quite a symphony going on out there and I am reminded of a time in Canada as a lad.

My brother and I would go fishing every hour that we were awake when we were at the lake. We had our favorite spots for certain times of the day or certain weather patterns. There was, however one time of the day that seemed to be the most special. It was in the late evening when you could no longer detect the color of anything due to darkness. That’s when fishing turned to magic.

I’m sure you’ve all heard you need to sneak up on fish, and with most fish this is true, but not true at all with bass. Make a noise and they will come to check it out. If you catch a bass you can see other bass come around to watch the struggle.

As it got dark the surface of the lake would become mirror smooth. One could see fish jumping all over the lake, rising to eat insects that had come to the surface of the water. We would start using a lure known as a Hula Popper, which was a simulated frog with a simulated grass skirt to hide the hooks. It had a big red mouth and as you jerked the line the popper would pull some air under water and make a big gulp sound. It would attract bass like sharks to blood. We would catch a fish on every cast and we could have done this all night, but we usually quit when it got too dark to see the lake.

Though I stopped fishing a few years after I moved out here; I often wonder if it was just that lake at that time, or if I could re-create this feeding frenzy on any body of water that contains bass.