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Check Your Scales

Dave Masterson discusses a fishing story from his childhood.
Check your Scales
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??? Back when I was a kid we use to do something called pond hopping. I had this little husky trail bike at first, and then graduated to a Honda Trail 70. My dad cut the handle off an old feed car to make my muffler, which was very loud….We called mini bikes ''motors'' back then. Give us 2 bucks in gas and we could cover the country. Mike Floyd and I would hit every pond within 20 miles of the home place in the summer and later, as we found the good lakes we went year round. Some lakes were off limits too, like the one past the old Mc Swain house about 3 miles south of us. We had to cross two wooden bridges to get there.

??? Anyway, this one pond, the one that was off limits, it was a classic. About 3-4 acres, never fished, all grown up around the sides, it had to have buster bass every cast …so we thought… Main problem, big house on the hill. If that was the owner, or an evil brother-in-law that was suppose to watch the lake, then he would have binoculars to watch for us…you would of thought we had warrants out for our arrest the way we saw things…holding back in the shadows of the pines….. just out of view…on our motors. Honestly, I never did get to fish that pond. I know your asking your self, '' Why didn't you go up and ask'' …heck no, for some reason we just didn’t do that. Most the ponds we fished came by way of OK from my dad's friends. Sometimes we would get him to ask for us, about fishing the neighbor's ponds. Seemed like he would always have wait till the man drove over one night to get a tool, or something before he would ask.
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??? Then there was Hellenders. A true beauty, 5-6 acres with deep water and fairly clean sides…a great lake for sure. We had seen it and knew what could be had. It was jewel nestled about a half mile away in a big slough, heck, I could walk up the road, cross the fence, and be there in 15 minutes. The other route would be to take the old Cedar Yard cemetery road down by what they called the ''Brain Tree'', park the motors and cross Mr. Greens land…not good…he had big red Angus and they were not exactly friendly. That summer I explored that lake thoroughly, every square inch. I knew just where to wade to find that special stump, to stand on, for some extra distance. I also found out were the big grass edges stopped, by the point, that area was way over my head. Fall I found a big stretch berry tree. We would load up first thing and then have starch berries in our coat pockets while we fished…we chewed them like tobacco, swallowed the juice…spit the seeds, turned your mouth purple. But it was a spring afternoon when I hung the big one at Hellenders pond. I had my dad's ambassador; it was red with a cool black handle. Sometimes, I would sneak his gear if my reels were screwed up.
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??? This particular Saturday morning I had taken care of my chores early and was free for the morning. I didn’t feel like riding, messing with Mr. Green or his red Angus, so I took off across the field that morning…barefoot, and with my dad's best rod and reel. Well, rather than going into all the details of that adventure, let me cut right to the chase. About 9 I had caught a few 2-3 pound bass throwing this old balsa wood crippled minnow…a huge bait… I had just made my way around to the sandy point where the grass beds were and waded in. Now understand, I did not really know what a ''bed '' looked like back then, how big bass related to them in the spawn. I was kid, walking the bank, chunking a big topwater plug. I probable walked right over her nest…. I waded in about to my waist and made a log cast past the grass into deep water. The big cigar shaped bait lay there motionless. It was beautiful…edge of the grass…deep water…sun just hitting the tops of the pines…..then…. Ka-Boom….A monster bass explodes on the bait and just about rips the rod right out of my hands. I frantically fight the fish all the way to chest deep water and then start working her back when she hangs in the moss. I drop my dad's rod on the bank and for some reason, decide to hand line my way out to the bass, which has now become lodged in a big clump of moss. I wade out and lip a giant …holler for my dog and run all the way home, big bass in tow.
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??? She weighed over 8 pounds, according to my dad's bathroom scales. We skinned her out and ate bass for dinner that night…and the next night as well. Back in the old days this was perfectly acceptable. That when I found out about the new house rule, my dad always said from then on, "over ten and we will mount her for you son…"

??? Good ol' Dad. You know, even to this day I always wondered how right those old scales were.

Dave Masterson