By Wayne Hooper
There is a big bass known as “Walter” in Arrowhead Lake in Southern Maine and only Clyde and I know where he hides. Much to my dismay, I had to call Clyde to join me when my fishing partner for a tournament there cancelled on me at the last minute.
As we reached the lake, the sun was just starting to shine through the trees and it was beginning to warm up. At the mandatory tournament meeting we listened as the rules of the day were read and then we drew for starting positions. I eased the boat off of the beach, started the engine and proceeded to move through the channel markers and out into the deeper water. As our boat number was called, I pushed the throttle forward and the boat jumped up on plane and we headed to where Walter made his home. When we neared his home area, I shut off the boat and flipped the trolling motor over the side. I set the speed on slow and crept to a distance that would enable us to cast to his hiding spot without him seeing us first.
The shade that was covering the other edge of the bank was starting to disappear as the sun rose and I could see his big, dark stump lying close to shore. I nosed the boat so I could get the first cast without Clyde thrashing the water. My jig/pig hit the side of the stump and I got hooked on it. After a few expletives, I told Clyde to cast his lure to the stump. Clyde’s lure hit the water like a ton of bricks, as he didn’t release his thumb from the spool quick enough. When the splash occurred the stump moved!
For what seemed like ten minutes, I jerked on my pole moving back and forth trying to get it dislodged from the stump. I was able to see my lure but it wouldn’t budge. I gave it one, last, desperate giant tug. My lure jumped off of the stump and immediately came to life.
“Oh baby, it’s Walter!”
He was running for deep water and I couldn’t turn him. He was as strong a fish as I have ever had on the end of my line. The only thing I could do was to hang on and wait for him to tire. He jumped and thrashed his head in a desperate attempt to throw the metal that was in his mouth but the hook was strong and it didn’t give. Walter was running back and forth as I kept reeling, trying to turn him towards the boat but he just kept taking me on a trip around the boat as he tried to dive under it for safety. He leaped again and made a tremendous splash but I held tight. Walter was in a panic mode but tiring fast. His quick jumps, dives and power tugs had worn him out and he slowly gave up and I reeled him closer to the boat.
As he neared the boat and saw Clyde’s face he took off once again in a powerful dive in one last attempt at freedom. I held on and survived another power surge. I brought him back to the boat and Clyde finally got into the act as he got the net and scooped the fish into it and lifted the net into the boat.
I sat there looking at this beautiful fish and realized that it had to weigh all of nine pounds and would likely be the lunker of the day. Every five minutes Clyde was back into the livewell looking at the fish and making cooing sounds to it. I finally told him to start fishing, as one fish would not win this tournament. He got back into fishing and we caught our ten-fish limit by noon. The remainder of the day we caught and culled another limit and with a half hour to go we fired the big Johnson outboard and proceeded to return to the tournament weigh-in location.
When our number was called, Clyde got a weigh-in bag and began to unload the back livewell while I retrieved the fish that were in the front livewell. I heard a groan from the back of the boat and turned to see Walter swimming off with four other fish.
“What did you do?” I asked Clyde.
“Nothing,” he said. “I just put them in the bag.”
I grabbed the bag and there was a big hole right in the bottom.
“Didn’t you check the bag?” I screamed.
“No, I never thought there would be a hole in it,” he said.
Do you know what this means?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said as he jumped off the boat into the water.
The guys in the boat next to us were holding their sides and laughing so hard I thought they would cry. I wanted to cry but not so much for losing Walter for the second time but for being stupid enough to take Clyde fishing again.
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