For some, a perfect day might be a DD bass or a 25-pound bag day. For me to declare perfection, it wouldn't be five-five pounders or a ten-pounder, but a dozen or so of these:
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- An early bird start. I like to begin when it’s nearly dark. Then I can cast into the black for the thrill of hearing but not seeing something wallop my lure. Uncertainty turns the excitement dial up to 11.
- A lonesome lake. I pull up beside it and see that the only one in the parking lot is me. Just me. No motors whining. No one banging against their boat. No wakes. No chatter.
- An airshow. Sure, I love the Blue Angels and Thunderbirds, but I also love seeing a Great blue heron taking to the sky, as ungainly as Ichabod Crane trying to fly, or a flock of geese beating air and water and rising like a gray, black, and white storm. Best of all is a Bald eagle making a low, imperial pass over me.
- I fish a lure for the first time or try a new technique. Sure, I likely fumble and fiddle before I finally land a fish, but then I catch another. And another. And just like that, I’ve added something new to my internal tackle box of tricks.
- I hook and land a big girl, but she doesn’t simply submit. She shows me how she became so big. Yeah, she shows me all her tricks. She goes deep. She takes line. I have to thrust my rod under my canoe to follow her flight. She comes out of the water like a Trident missile. She shakes her head like a terrier. She tail-walks like a tarpon. I finally capture her, but barely. Just barely.
- I hook and lose a big girl. In a Twilight Zone episode, a gambler dies and awakens in a gambling parlor, where he wins and wins and wins again. So, he says to the character running the establishment, thinking he’s in Heaven and talking to an angel, “Hey, buddy, do you think I could lose now and then? Just to make it interesting, ya know. It would make me happier, ya see, this being Heaven and all." And the room's manager says, "What makes you think you're in Heaven?" Fishing's like that. It's good to lose now and then. It keeps us hungry. It keeps us puzzled about how to become better fishers. And it maintains proper respect for the bass we love.
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- Bass dapple the surface. Two things make my heart race. The first is a musky beside my canoe, glaring at me. The second is seeing bass plucking bugs and gulping frogs off the surface. I’ve been in the middle of smallmouth rising to falling mayflies. The bass freckled every few yards of the lake, their mouths so stuffed with mayflies that they couldn't take my lure. Oh, but they tried and tried. Knowing a bass is there and knowing that you have seconds to drop your lure within inches of where that bass just rose is the sweetest anxiety.
- Shad leaping to escape bass. See #8.
- Seeing or experiencing something new. There was a morning when I was fishing an Ontario lake that was plate-glass smooth. I cast my surface Rapala and witnessed a bulge beneath it. The water was suddenly and briefly convex, like a contact lens, as a bass rose to study my lure, lifting the water above it. I knew it was a bass because it erupted on my lure a nanosecond after I said to my partner, "Did you see that?" For the record, he did see it. And ever since, I look for the slight bulging of water to warn me that a bass attack is imminent. It doesn't happen often, and the light has to be just right, but it's still a thrill to see.
- Seeing beasts other than bass. My love affair with bass is a slice of my love affair with the wild world. Other than ticks, mosquitoes, and ankle-biting flies, I love all critters, and on the wide-open water, we get to see them with nothing between them and us. I've seen Pelicans and Trumpeter swans in Canada, beavers, and bears on both sides of the border, and eagles and ospreys pert near everywhere. I’ve seen many munching moose and, once, a deer with a double-digit rack drinking in the lake. When he saw me, it bolted with such power and majesty that I said, seeing it was beyond a buck, “Now, that’s a stag!” I’ve seen so few owls that they’re rare, thrilling surprises, but I’ve heard many.
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- Rain. Modern society has taught us that we run or duck under cover, such as umbrellas and awnings, when it rains. Fishing teaches us that rain is just fine. At its worst, it’s a piffling thing and no reason to run. At its best, it triggers bass to bite with abandon, thanks to the low pressure that triggers feeding and because bass can’t get a good bead on our lures when the rain is pattering the water.
- Fog. Like rain, fog can make it harder for bass to study our lures. Lower light means a lesser look; thus, they're more likely to strike. But, like the night, fog also adds a measure of mystery.
- A waterfall. It's not just that smallmouth love current. The waterfall's base is such a complex, kinetic place to fish, with eddies here and current there. In an anchorless canoe, it tests my paddling prowess as much as my fishing skill. In the north country, the bases of waterfalls also load with walleyes and pike, which makes achieving #12, i.e., catching more than one species, easy-peasy. I even like the roar and the mist, and fighting a bass in current amplifies their already considerable pulling power.
- Thickets of weeds. When eyeing a tangle of weeds and doubting whether any bass could worm into that, don’t doubt. Cast! I’ve even caught smallmouth in the openings of lily pad mats.
A tournament fisher who needs a particular number to be in the money, might not wax about Trumpeter swans and the unexpected sauger. He certainly won’t treasure fumbling and fiddling with a new technique or the big gal who came unbuttoned beside his boat, but I do. Have I ever hit a dozen of these on a single trip? Maybe not, but remember that Twilight Zone episode? It’s Heaven when we’re left hungry.
