Giving Thanks to the 'All-American Game Fish'

“The fish is spiny, chunky, and substantial in a way no trout will ever be. Its sides are rough to the touch and it wears an in-your-face look befitting a species that isn’t afraid to eat other vertebrates half its size for lunch.” —Author E. Donnall Thomas, Jr. In the book “Whitefish Can’t Jump”

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It was a warm steamy day, the kind that southern Louisiana is famous for. Though it was still early, the rising heat had already sapped my energy and yours truly—at the ripe old age of 7—was already daydreaming of heading home for the comfort of the AC, a Moon Pie snack and an ice-cold Coca-Cola.

Even if the Louisiana bayou’s plentiful bass had yet to cooperate, my dad was determined to stay a while longer, looking to find a few sizable largemouths willing to inhale his Mann’s grape Jelly Worm.

So I kept casting. Half-heartedly tossing my MirrOLure Sinker towards anything that looked like it might harbor a bass—a dock here, a cypress stump there, a lily pad elsewhere.

I really don’t remember much about the strike, just that suddenly there was determined resistance at the end of my line. After clumsily rearing back, something suddenly registered in my young mind, and I yelled “Dad, I got one!”

And indeed I did, as I finally got the bass boat side, gingerly reached down and lipped it like my television heroes Bill Dance or Virgil Ward would do and held it up to the sky for all the world to see.

After months and months of trying and casting to no avail, I finally had a largemouth bass.

Or more appropriately, the bass finally had me.

Little did I know in that moment that this fish—and countless numbers of its green cousins all across North America—would eventually occupy my dreams, much of my available time and a considerable portion of my income.

But it did, and the bass still does nearly four decades later. In fact, I probably wouldn’t be here as an outdoor writer if not for America’s fish.

For a case in point, I think back to a time as I was sitting in a deer stand with my youngest son, Will, now a biologist with Quail Forever. As we sat in that two-man stand, I happened to glance upwards and notice the flight of a flock of ducks working up the creek and towards one of my state’s best-known bass waters, Lake Fork.

As I traced their motion across the autumn sky, I thought about the timber-choked lake that they were flying to and where they might possibly land. And when they did lower their landing gear, slow their wing beats, and reach out for the water of the famed East Texas lunker factory, whether or not a big bass might be lurking somewhere nearby and what lure she might be willing to take.

After all, the Texas bass fishing world was upended on a late autumn day many years ago when Lake Fork guide Mark Stevenson pitched a black/brown/pink Stanley jig tight to cover at midday on Wednesday, Nov. 26, 1986, as he guided two Dallas clients in his boat. The day before Thanksgiving that year, the then 42-year-old guide—still actively guiding in his late 70s now—found the fish biting that morning despite morning lows in the upper 20s and a water temp in the upper 50s. 

On a day that offered great football weather, Stevenson's toss of the jig into flooded brush was soon met with strong resistance, a tug unlike any that countless other Texas bass anglers had ever experienced. There's a reason for that because at the other end of Stevenson's line was a largemouth bass later named Ethel, a 17.7-pound giant that toppled the Texas state record and really, in many ways, became the most important fish catch in Lone Star State history as noted in a great story about the historical catch that was written by veteran Texas outdoor scribe Matt Williams in the Dallas Morning News.

While I might never catch a bass as big as Ethel, I can’t tell you how many nights I’ve gone to bed dreaming of doing so.

Some nights, I’ll nod off with thoughts about the day I caught the “Big Three,” a sizzling hour and 45 minute period on Fork when the stars aligned and I landed three bass pushing the 10-pound mark on DD22 crankbaits.

Other nights, I’ll visit Mr. Sandman with not as pleasant thoughts about “Little Ethel,” the monster bass that broke my line—and my heart—at the boat while my DD22 crankbait hung out of the side of her mouth. As I recall, my guide Randy Oldfield estimated her weight to be at least 11 pounds, and possibly 12 pounds or better. 

Some dreams are filled with thoughts of particular bass that stick in my memory for a variety of reasons, like the 5-pound bass that surged up out of the water, arced over the top-water popper tied to the end of my Orvis fly line and dove downward with a fearsome splash that would have made Shamu the killer whale proud. My good friend and retired fly fishing guide Rob Woodruff still ribs me about that lost opportunity.

Other dreams are consumed with the places that I’ve been privileged to visit while chasing this piscatorial critter, from lily pad-filled farm ponds to timber-choked lakes in my home state of Texas to clear smallmouth waters of the North Country and even on to the stunningly beautiful mountainous bass water of Lake Huites deep in the heart of Mexico.

And those are just the places where I have been blessed to wet a line in pursuit of bass. 

Other places are lakes and rivers and deltas where I’ve been able to cover the exploits of the pros at Major League Fishing, the Bassmaster Elite Series and FLW Tour events across this great land of ours. Places where on-the-water battles that an Old West gunslinger would be proud of have taken place, rod-and-reel fights that were eventually decided at the scales by mere ounces.

Other nightly imaginations rolling around in my cerebral cortex have dealt with the myriad of great people that I’ve been able to meet because of bass. 

Some of those folks are famous bass-fishing pros like Bill Dance, Kevin VanDam, Randy Howell, Kelly Jordon, Edwin Evers, Skeet Reese, Jimmy Houston, Roland Martin, Denny Brauer and the late Aaron Martens to name a few.

Others are local anglers in my part of North Texas, fishermen who know how to sling a lure with the best of them, even if they aren’t the household names that KVD and some of those others are. Guys like my friend Woodruff, our pal Steve Hollensed, and a few more like Andrew Means, Jason Blankenship, Randy Dustin, Scott Cox, Chris Bobo, Landon Heinen, and Lance San Millan, other great anglers all come to mind. 

Still other bass-angling dreams of mine deal with the equipment that fills my garage—rods, reels, lures and such that prevent me from being able to put the truck in on cold nights. 

Boxes and boxes of baits from A to Z, enough mono and fluorocarbon to circle the earth a few times over, enough graphite and fiberglass rods to stretch to the moon and back, and a collection of reels that is always in need of at least one more of the latest and greatest contraptions if the collection is to ever be complete.

What about the rigs I’ve chased bass in? Yep, boats like my Ranger certainly visit my nightly dreamland too, as do the gleaming Nitros and Bass Cats that have ripped rooster tails up and down big reservoirs where I’ve covered a bass tournament. And then there are the dinged-up aluminum johnboats, canoes and kayaks that have slipped quietly into a backwater where I had hoped to find a hefty bucketmouth at home.

With all of this swirling around in the gray matter during this week of Thanksgiving, an annual time where I pause and try to recall all that I am grateful for each year—things ranging from my faith to my family to my material possessions and my undeserved blessings. I can’t help but think that one of my richest possessions I have in this great land is simply the ability and wherewithal to be able to chase this great American game fish, the bass.

The bass include the largemouth, the smallmouth, and their spotted cousins, and it’s an annual chase that never rests, taking place from one end of this great land to the other and literally from sea to shining sea.

Such is the power of the bass, or better yet, the power of America’s fish. And while there are many other things I’m thankful for in this season of being grateful for life’s many blessings, the All-American game fish sits up near the top of my list.

So if you don’t mind, maybe that’s what I’ll do on Black Friday this year while others are out shopping. Instead of fighting the crowds, maybe I’ll grab a rod and reel, a tackle box, and few slow moving lures, and head for the nearest boat ramp to see what might be willing to bite. 

With any luck, maybe it’ll be Ethel’s offspring, one that will give me double-digit reasons to be grateful for the bass.

Either way, when you’ve been blessed to get out and go bass fishing mere hours after Turkey Day has come and gone and the last of the pumpkin pie has been polished off, well, there are certainly worse ways to spend a late November day, right?

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