Pine Lake Fish ‘Tales’ - “I Got One”“I got one, I got one!”. The best three words in fishing. They are accompanied by a rush of excitement and a thrill of knowing that it could be the big one on the other end of the line. The only thing that makes it better is when you hear those three words come out of a young kid’s mouth. TIP: Every spring as the water temps get into the high 50’s, largemouth bass move into the shallows where they hunt for gravel bottom areas on which they can fan out circular nests and lay their eggs. This process is called the “spawn”. On calm days you can sight fish for spawning bass by casting soft plastic baits onto their beds and forcing a defensive reaction bite from the fish. Fish that are either pre or post spawn will be cruising the shallows looking for their next meal and will aggressively attack just about any bait you put in front of their face. It is the best time of the year to catch lots of fish and big ones too! Last Sunday I was fishing the shallow flat directly across the narrows from the country club. I was hunting for large female bass that were holding on beds when from over my shoulder, I heard… “hey mister…what kind of fish did you just catch”. I turned around and realized for the first time that I had an audience. Two 8–9-year-old boys were standing at the end of the dock about 20 yards away watching me as I did my best pro bass fisherman imitation. I motored over to the dock and told them that I had just caught a largemouth bass on a plastic worm. Next question, “do you have any extra worms”? “Sure do” I said. TIP: I flipped them a pack of 6” Soft Plastic Roboworms in Margarita Mutilator color (Purplish Pink). The boys very politely asked if I needed them back, I told them that the worms were all theirs as-long-as they used them to catch a lunker. They ran off down the dock to grab a fishing pole and I motored down the bank and went back to trying to spot a big one in the clear water. About 10 minutes later I’m about 50 yards from the dock, and I hear “I got one, I got one!” being screamed from one of the boys. I looked up to see one of the boys holding a rod that is bent over and bouncing up and down, I could hear his reel straining to crank in a very nice largemouth. The second boy had a net that he used to scoop up the bass and hoist it onto the dock. Seeing those boys crank in the big bass and hearing them yelling with the joy that comes with hooking and landing a fish all by yourself, brought a smile to my face. Although I wasn’t the one holding the rod, it was one of my all-time favorite catches I’ve seen on Pine Lake. There is nothing better than seeing a kid pulling in a big bass while they are screaming at the top of their lungs.
“I got one, I got one!” James Sheridan, Avid Fisherman from Birch Harbor
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