Now Franks a very big man with huge hands so the fish is much bigger than it looks at first glance.
I arrived about a half an hour early and walked around to get a feel for the place. Here a gravel company had dug a series of big pits. Large enough that you could see someone on the other side but not tell who they were. In this spring of neverending rain the nearby river had overflowed and breached the high banks between and was now connected to the back pit. The closest pit was also overflowing running thru a fifty yard channel into the pit by the river. Here at this cut Frank had caught his giant bass. There was current and clear water running into muddy water, the right water temperatures and that magic mojo that only sets up once or twice in a decade. Franksaid he had caught several big fish here along with his giant last week and after looking the place over I certainly believed him. Not wanting to horn in on his spot without him I began fishing around the pits far side while waiting on him. On a small bench two small bass hit a spinnerbait then a better one. A good bass around four pounds...
Soon Frank showed up and we went to his honeyhole. Standing where the channel cut thru from one pit to the next he hauled in one fish after another on a diving crankbait.
Another good sized bass thumped my crankbait...
As action slowed we explored another pit to rest the spot and wait on Josh. This pit was muddy and also breahed by the river and we caught nothing. Nothing that is till Franks crankbait struck something and he was into the fight of a lifetime. In the muddy water the treble hooks had snared a huge fish. Up and down the bank went this huge fish. Forever. After maybe five minutes it rolled up giving us a look at a tail ten inches across. Then back to swimming wherever it wanted with Frank holding on for the ride. Sometime later (a half hour, forty minutes? I'm not sure) it seemed to tire just a bit and began to roll closer to shore. Frank's Moby Dick didn't have the burnt orange color of a huge carp but was more of a blue green. We never got a good look or a positive ID but a buffalo seemed a good guess. The giant had the right color and buffalo get huge. Just as the great fish began to seem to weaken a bit the crankbait popped free. Just like that no big drama it was just on one second and off the next. Josh arrived and we went back to the spot. Where once again they hauled in several fish.
For some reason my luck temporarily left and I caught only one fish. After a couple hours we left to eat and I decided to check out a nearby park for a future trip with the grandkids. Leaving there my way home led past the pits and with forty minuts of daylight left I decided to fish till dark. And some guy was camped on the spot with a lawn chair baitfishing. As i watched he caught a nice bass and released it.
I walked down to where the channel emptied into the muddy water of the other pit. The level in the channel had already fallen since earlier and the outflow looked completely different than just a few hour earlier. The first cast into the mixing water caught a nice bass...
Then one after another till a big fish hit my lure right before dark...
It looked like by tomorrow the water would fall and the cut would be gone. Soon the big bass would spawn and leave the shallows. All the things that had added up to making this magic spot would be gone I was thankful to have been there.
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