The View from Rat Lake by John Gierach

Author:John Gierach
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

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THE MUSIC OF THE SPHERES

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It’s toward the end of May; shirtsleeve warm most days, but still cold—rather than “cool”—as night comes on. The cottonwoods, willows, and dogwoods are leafed out and some grasses are up, but it all looks new and almost edibly tender. The efficient, hard greens of summer are yet to come; it will happen imperceptibly, but one day there it will be. Great Blue herons fish in the shallows, and a few Canada geese are still on the nests, though most are now out on the ponds towing dirty yellow goslings behind them.

You’ve been fishing the warm water for a month now, having been skunked, or nearly so, the first few times out. But that’s part of it. The spawning of the bass and panfish starts early. Well, not “early,” really; exactly on time, in fact, but sooner in the year than you have ever been able to get used to.

It’s a holdover from childhood, reinforced by outdoor photography and magazine stories. This kind of fishing is supposed to take place in hot weather, complete with mosquitos, but when you look at your slides of past seasons, you see your friends in jackets and wool hats standing among brown cattails catching bluegills.

The spawning bluegills are easy. They’ll hit any wet fly, nymph, or streamer they can get their small mouths around. All you have to do is find them, and that’s not too hard, either. They spawn in the same spots season after season, and you’ve been fishing these ponds for many years.

The largemouth bass are on the beds at about the same time, and, although it’s not quite like shooting fish in a barrel as some say, they can be found and they can be caught. There’s some debate over the ethics of this. Some say spawning fish should be left alone (“How would you like it?”), but you have yet to make your mind up on that one. In a sense it does seem unfair, but then you’ve been told by warm-water fisheries managers that bass seldom spawn successfully here in Colorado because of the skittish, fitful spring weather. The water warms, but then a cold front comes in and it cools down again. Or it snows, or cold snow-melt water pours in, or something. A change of only a few degrees can, and often does, kill the eggs. Most Colorado bass fisheries are put-and-take in one way or another. The fish are residents of these ponds and plenty wild enough, but few were actually born here.

From a management point of view, it’s okay, but usually after a few trips you begin to feel cheap taking them off the beds like that, even though you’re releasing them. They fight sluggishly, seeming puzzled, or maybe even resigned, and they don’t even hit from aggressiveness so much as from a kind of housecleaning instinct. You cast a fly onto the bed and the fish picks it up to move it out.

Among these bass are some of the biggest examples of the species you’ll see all year, but once you’ve seen a few, it’s enough.

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