Casting for a Bass

I've heard a good number of people say that catching a big fish is easy in the spring, and like they do that eye roll and sighing motion as they say it, in a partly arrogant manner.  To me, having the perfect ratio of bait and predator, in close enough, then to blitz, and then to find a spot amongst the human element of the blitz sandwiched between a bunch of nuts heaving hooks and metal past your head, and then to hook and fight a huge fish and not tangle or have it come off or lose it getting over the lip in the wash, and to have your arms shaking and your heart pounding and your voice suddenly a lot louder, is to me quite a miraculous event.  Though some have found that this spring, without an event like that pending Will, Doug, and I had to do it the second best way- read the water and make some well-sighted blind casts. 

A lonely beach and fog- if 'it happened' no one else would have been there to see 'it'.  And I'm sure we would have had a damn good time alone in the forest.

At first sight of the water, my brain automatically went into computer fish mode.  How many blitzes have I had in the fog?  Not many.  What about after days of south wind?  Not good.  Brown water.  Eh.  Do I see bait?  No, nothing obvious, look closer, no.  2-3ft 'wet' south swell.  Don't remember much good in these conditions.  The wind coming off the water is chilly, uh too much upwelling.  Okay . . . we're going to look around for bait and better water.  I want smaller waves, a warmer wind, greener and clearer water.  That's where the life will be, and that's where we'll just walk down to the water and make some casts with the most likely lures.  That is the best chance to catch a fish today.  Until I can figure out a way to do better than what I think is the best I can do, I guess I'm stuck with that.

Success! Doug pictured with a nice casting bass on a white surface swimmer.

Before we started our adventure, earlier in the day I had a feeling of where it would be best to settle in and cast.  When I saw the cleaner water, some dolphins, a possible school of bunker a distance off the beach, and a nice sandbar in the place I was thinking about earlier in the day I thought good.  Let's cast it!  Doug, I'm going to use the wood surface swimmer, go real slow and maybe one will come up on it.  It didn't take very long before a fish stopped my swimmer right behind a wave.  I think I just had a hit.  Cast again. 

While retrieving I heard a hoot to my right.  Doug was on!  That's a bass, look at the way the rod is working.  After a nice fight, Doug sanded a slender but healthy looking 30 inch or so striped bass.  Yes!  I looked around- there were no obvious signs of life in the water- and there was even a rainbow.  Oh yeah, if we get into a subtle bite on swimmers, oh that would be great!  Shut up insatiable part, isn't this nice enough? Yes, yes it is.  Sometimes all it takes is one- and it doesn't even have to be mine.