Small Waters: My One Shot at Tournament Fishing

I PROBABLY could count on two hands the number of bass I caught in my life before reaching the age of 50, though I have caught my fair share since then. Most of those early bass, I must admit, were unintentional. This is my story of one such bass.

Last updated on October 6th, 2023 at 03:42 pm

Small Waters is an occasional feature where we explore the personal side of bass fishing and the pond fishing life. ~ Editor

The Whoosh of Traffic

When I was a kid, my dad loved to take my brothers and me fishing, mostly for what we called perch (likely more accurately described as bream or bluegill). Our family could catch some perch, and it was an activity we engaged in regularly in a canal along Airline Highway, where cars and 18-wheelers zoomed by at 70 miles per hour a mere 10-15 feet away. Our cane poles were rigged with bobbers, ball weights, and tiny hooks baited with juicy worms we dug up in the backyard garden before sunrise. We could not have asked for anything better.

Standing there on the canal bank amid the whoosh of traffic was the ultimate test of concentration, but we thought nothing of the danger that a vehicle could veer off the road for any number of reasons and create a tragedy. To us, the only tragedy we could imagine was the fish not biting. But that was rarely the case.

Usually, we returned home by mid-morning with enough fish to fry for lunch. We scaled them in the backyard, gutted them, and cut off their heads using a U-shaped cut to preserve the tiny bit of extra meat at the fish’s forehead. (Bet you didn’t know fish had foreheads.) And my dad fried them — bones, fins, tails, and all. Mom made sure we had slices of bread at the ready in case someone got a bone stuck in their throat, which apparently happened to some distant relative long ago. Also note, if you’ve never bit into the crunchy tail of a perch/bream/bluegill that has been deep-fried, well my friend, you’ve missed out.

The fishing trips were fun, but on occasion, things would elevate to a whole new level of excitement when someone would inadvertently hook a bass. This happened from time to time, often to my older brothers, which they usually proclaimed as a sign of their superior fishing skills. Let’s face it, we were using cane poles to drop lines off the side of the bank and waiting for a passing fish to bite. Skill level: Zero.

Zebco and Evinrude to the Rescue

That scenario evolved somewhat once we upgraded to Zebco 202 reel combos ($3.75 each at TG&Y) and a new-to-us flat-bottom boat which, if I remember correctly, came with a used 7.5 horsepower Evinrude motor. Before we could take it on the water, my dad had to patch some holes in the boat and tinker with the motor to get it running right. He also knocked the rust off and painted the boat blue.

Dad completed the boat renovations on his day off, which through blind luck was also a day off of kindergarten for me. Nobody else was available for the inaugural run, so the two of us headed out to spend the morning testing the new boat’s limits. When my brothers got back from school, they were full of questions. Mainly, how fast did it go? I remember running up and down the driveway to approximate the speed. They were impressed.

What I didn’t tell them was, at one point, while we were going full throttle, a fellow boater had slowed down to match our pace and asked us if we needed help with our “mechanical problems.” We waved him off without bothering to explain that the “little Evinrude that could” was running at peak performance.

As a side note, that boat was stolen from our backyard a few years later by a group of rowdy local teens and recovered later that same day by our dad who, in full detective mode, found the boys puttering along in the nearest body of water. This made sense since they had no vehicle to haul the boat and likely transported it there by hand and foot. There may have been illegal substances involved; but that I cannot confirm.

One more thing: Early in the investigation, a “real” detective came to the house to scour the crime scene — basically a patch of dead grass where the boat had been parked — for clues and such. He came back into the house to report that our boat had been stolen by an “adult male,” backing up his conclusion by showing us the cigarette butt he’d found at the scene. Because no one but an adult male would EVER smoke a cigarette. I remember this distinctly because as soon as he left, my mom declared the detective an “idiot.”

The Choupique Rodeo

I have digressed, but I’d like to get back to one particular fishing trip that left a lasting impression on me. It was one of those boys-only fishing trips, and we were wielding the Zebcos and taking turns manning the Evinrude — living like “rich people,” we liked to say. We no longer had to endure the highway traffic zipping by, but there was traffic of a different kind to contend with on this particular day.

It just happened to be Day 1 of the annual Choupique Rodeo, and local competitors were heading out in their powerboats to catch their limit of bass and other species, including the much-maligned bowfin, known to many Louisianans as the choupique (pronounced shoe-pick), a Choctaw word meaning “mudfish.”

Those fishermen, in a show of etiquette that would make Miss Manners proud, were nice enough to power down in order to “cast no wake” as they passed our tiny vessel. These same guys would be back on the road in their pick-up trucks later that same day, breaking all kinds of traffic laws. But on the water, they conformed to the boating code, waving, nodding, or raising a beer can in salute as they crawled past us. Yep, at this early hour, these athletes were already fueling up on beer, and I’m fairly certain a good percentage of them would be legally drunk by mid-morning. So much for following the rules.

Anyway, for the past few days, I had been prepping for this trip by sitting under our carport and practice-casting at a foot tub placed in the front yard, and my efforts were starting to pay off. Truth is, I was getting good. (Though every dad in the neighborhood just HAD to stop his truck, manually roll down the window, and ask how they were biting. Dads being dads, I suppose.)

So it was no big surprise when my first cast of the day landed directly under a cypress tree about 20 feet away, my bobber bobbing upright among the cypress knees, a sure sign that I had adjusted the depth correctly. This caught the attention of my dad who — and I’ll never forget this — whispered, “Nice cast.”

I glanced back and caught his look of approval before returning my attention to the bobber. “Just let it sit,” he said quietly. “No way there’s not a fish right there.”

My precision cast caught the attention of my dad who — and I’ll never forget this — whispered, “Nice cast.” I glanced back and caught his look of approval before returning my attention to the bobber.

And he was right, of course. My bobber stirred once, then twice, then shot down below the water’s surface. I set the hook like Bill Dance and began reeling the Zebco like an old pro. “Slow and steady,” my dad said in my ear. “That’s a big one.” (This needs some clarification. The perch we were catching were roughly 5-7 inches long and less than half a pound each. The fish currently on my line appeared to be on the higher end of that range. Or so I thought.)

Wrong!

The perch I caught was a bass. When I pulled him into the boat, he measured just short of a foot long, according to the hand-drawn ruler on Daddy’s old ice chest, meaning he might be pushing a pound. I was beside myself with excitement as my brothers brooded. They knew their baby brother had outdone them for once. But they were not done with me just yet.

“Whoa, that’s huge,” one said, side-eyeing the other.

“We should enter it in the rodeo,” the other said, stifling a laugh.

Meanwhile, I beamed with pride. “Can we, Daddy?” I asked, my head filled with images of the shiny gold trophies stacked on the table back at the boat launch. Daddy just grunted as he added the fish to our stringer. Two hours later, with a full stringer, we were puttering along back to the launch as fast as the Evinrude could take us.

I marched up to the check-in table with my bass, and the tournament officials gathered to take a look. It was still early, and only two fish had been entered so far, by a couple of ol’ boys fishing from the dock. Mine was measured and weighed on the official scale. At 0.85 pounds, I was in third place! That’s what the tally board proclaimed as we drove out of the gravel parking lot shortly thereafter.

And that’s what I told Mom when we got home, and what I told the kids at school the following Monday. “I won third place!” I said, oblivious to the fact that my tiny bass was quickly knocked from the standings when the first boat came in. My brothers tried to tell me, but I wasn’t having it.

The trophy may have gotten lost in the mail. (That was my theory, anyway.) But in my mind, I was a winner. There was no doubt I WON third place in my first-ever (and only) fishing competition.