I caught a big bass this past week in one of my favorite places.  He was a hefty, hard-fighting largemouth, which I admired and released.  He seemed to be very appreciative as he swum away.   A smaller fish might have ‘swam’ away, but all the big fish I ever remember all ‘swum’ off. 

It’s like a sycamore tree three feet in diameter doesn’t splash when it falls.  When it hits the water it goes KA-WHOOM, and echoes across the river bottom like meteor crashing into a high mountain.  It is a matter of accuracy in description.

Anyhow, it was three in the afternoon, and somewhere around 92 degrees if you weren’t in the shade.  I’d jump in and get good and wet about every 30 minutes or so.  Fishing wasn’t good at all, you could tell the bass were back in under logs and brush, probably gorged with minnows and crawdads and fanning each other with their tails to combat the heat. 

But it didn’t matter, I was out there to enjoy the ambience and peace of a natural setting, and I am about sick of eating fish anyway.  Thankfully, I have never gotten sick of catching them.  Finally in a flash, in an unsuspecting second during which I was just watching that lure splashing around on the surface, there was the swirl of water around it and beneath it. The lure was gone, with a large yellow-green slab-side appearing and disappearing so quickly my lightning quick reflexes were left unaware of the happenings, like a half-grown pullet snatched by a chicken hawk.

Well, intending to keep my rod and reel, I reared back on it.  The hook was large, the line strong. My rod bent in a graceful, throbbing arc with the weight of his struggle. But, to make a short story a little longer, he finally was confronted with his defeat, and lifted aboard soon to be the object of one more photo.  I took out a board, and put the fish on it, then found a tape measure in my tackle box.  It measured 30 inches in length…  the board did, I mean.  The fish itself was eight inches shorter than the board… or maybe 9.  That’s a real lunker.

I kinda like outdoor poetry, but only the kind that rhymes.  Like this one…. “Oh little flower on a boosh-- so  pretty, but I bet  you  woosh…you had a song which could be heard.  Bet you woosh you was a bird! 

Here is a longer poem about summer which contains some great advice…----

“The heat we’ve been a havin’ ain’t necessarily pleasin’, but there ain’t no snow in the tomato patch, and there ain’t nobody freezin’. 

It’s only in the 90’s, and the fishin’s fairly good, so I figure summer’s goin’ pretty much the way it should. 

The squirrels are workin’ the hick’ries, and somewhere’s it’s a rainin’, so I’ll wait ‘til we get our share, and you won’t hear me complainin’. 

Life is great on this old farm, and I ain’t a gonna whine, cause as long as I can catch some fish, then things is goin’ fine. 

Ma’s cannin’ is nigh over, ‘til the apples come to ripen, I can’t figure why that woman’s always sittin’ ‘round and gripin’. 

I’d take her out a-fishin’, if she’d promise to be quite, but when she’s rantin’ and a rarin’ I can’t get the fish to bite. 

So if your lookin’ for some good advice, I’m just the man to give it…  I say summer won’t be wasted, ‘less you just forget to live it.

There’s a sunset that’s worth seein’ and the sky is full of stars, there’s the sound of water flowin’ over river gravel bars. 

There’s fireflies o’er the meadows, summer flowers here and there, and I can hear a bullfrog beller, and a hoot owl off somewhere. 

When tomorrow comes a dawnin’ its likely to be hot, but I can say that even if it is, I druther see it… than not. 

There’s cooler days a comin’, us old-timers can remember, but let’s waste no days of August whilst we’re pinin’ for September.

If your hopin’ for a better time, just listen when I say, this’n may be all we got, so just enjoy today. 

God sends us autumn’s beauty. He sends the springtime dew.  He made the birds, He made the bugs, and He made August too.”

Write to me at Box 22, Bolivar, MO 65613 or email me at lightninridge47@gmail.com