Anyone who ever spends time in the boat with another person, whether it's for fun fishing or a tournament, undoubtedly has a few unforgettable days etched permanently in his/her memory banks. I know I do.
Following is an account I read about online recently that sparked my recollection about a couple of personal incidents over the years. The boater in this account began by explaining that he was just coming into his own on the local tournament scene when he signed up for a one-day event on Okeechobee.
"Let me say that my partner seemed like a really nice guy, but he also seemed to be pretty wired. He was kinda short, obviously was from 'up north', and every time I looked at him or heard him speak, I was reminded of Joe Pesci's character, Leo Getz, from Lethal Weapon...you know...'ok, ok, ok, they $%+@ you at the drive-thru.' His mannerisms and everything were spot on...to the point of being uncanny.
"Anyway, we met up in the morning just fine, though he still seemed a bit 'energized.' The first red flag for the day was the number of spinning rods he put in my boat. Don't get me wrong...I like spinning rods, but Okeechobee just is not the place to bring ALL spinning rods...especially after my telling him what kind of fishing we were going to be doing. But heh, whatever, it's his own deal.
"The time prior to blastoff was pretty normal, you know, good conversation about random stuff to try to get to know each other. After blastoff, we made our way to my area, just to find ourselves relatively alone. Things happened pretty quickly for me in the beginning...I caught a couple fish right off the bat. After that, it became a bit of a grind...you know, just your regular mid-morning lull. I essentially was working these grass mats one by one, slowly picking them apart. The fish seemed to be very spooky and lethargic, so I was trying to stay stealthy around every mat.
"After a couple hours of tough fishing, I could tell that the patience on the back of the deck was getting a little...well...thin. At first, there was an occasional exchange from one spinning rod to another, then it began to turn into an obsessive process of elimination of sorts. You know the scene...about nine or ten messy spinning rods all tangled together in one big wad of 'fairy wands.' This by itself was frustrating enough, especially since I, too, was getting frustrated with the lull in action.
"Things continued to get progressively anxious, and the next tick that Leo picked up was a seemingly insatiable need to fish from both sides of the back of the boat. He literally would make one cast to one side, then shuffle over to the other side to make a cast, and then go back over to the other side...to the point where he turned my boat into a wave machine that would make Typhoon Lagoon jealous. It was like there was a Golden Retriever on the back of my boat, with a sea of tennis balls surrounding us on all sides, not knowing what to do with himself. He just couldn't pick a side, and before I knew it, I was punching through mats that had little waves rippling through them...obviously in conflict with my plan to stay stealthy. Needless to say, I had to say something, which I did. No big deal...I just communicated, and the waves stopped.
"Soon thereafter, the punching bite picked up. I boated a 5-pounder, 3-pounder, and another keeper. I was beginning to look pretty solid, but Capt. Spinning Rod was having a tough time. He easily could have cast a fluke to the open water and caught a load of keepers, but he was throwing some oddball finesse stuff on light line in heavy grass...and it just wasn't doing the trick.
"The wave machine started back up, and I could tell things were getting a little frustrating for him. He finally expressed frustration that he didn't have any heavy tungsten to punch with...and I, of course, mentioned that he really didn't have any gear to punch with anyway. However, he persisted, so I obliged and gave him a wrecking ball-sized hunk of metal, and he tied it on to what looked like 8-pound test...with NO PEG (though I had suggested it).
"It was a pretty interesting sight, seeing old Leo Getz with a medium-action spinning rod, trying to control a 1.5-oz. tungsten weight. The funny, yet incredibly distracting part of the whole scene was the fact that every time he punched into a mat, the weight would disappear into the abyss, while his little green brush hog would remain on top of the mat, with the appendages waving at me. Unless a topwater bite turned on, he obviously wasn't going to catch anything.
"Inevitably, he got frustrated again, put down the heavy tungsten rig, grabbed another spinning rod and started the Golden Retriever routine again, turning my mats into a wavy mess. If his fishing strategy wasn't already bizarre enough, things really became confusing...and amusing...when a fish started busting on a bluegill in open water, probably 40 feet from the boat. This was it...his opportunity. There was no way he was going to mess this up...this fish was HOT...ready to eat...and his little finesse rig was sure to get its attention.
"In a most unanticipated move, however, instead of throwing that finesse bait, he raced to his mess of rods, noisily shook free a spinning rod from the pile, and before I could see what his selection was, he had the rod behind him, with the length of the rod loading in an entirely unnatural way...and then KERPLUNK!!! For some unknown reason, his choice for a schooling fish in open water was...yes...the 1.5-oz. free-floating weight with the little green brush hog. It was like he had thrown a cherry bomb into the water, which might have been his strategy...you know, a dynamite kind of principle. I was fully expecting to see an unsuspecting bass float up to the surface, following his death by a case of severe bilateral subdural hematoma.
"For the rest of the day, I decided to focus on my own efforts, and though my bass had to contend with unnatural waves and air-to-surface-missile attacks, I was able to finish the day with a solid weigh-in and a check.
"Despite my partner having a tough day, I hope I get to fish with him again...super good dude. He just has a different energy level than me, but that's the beauty of fishing with so many different partners."
The partner in this account throwing a 1.5-oz. tungsten weight reminded me about a Navy fella I once fished with on the Shenandoah River. We were using live bait for catfish. Like the partner in this story, he, too, tied on a heavy weight (despite my urging to the contrary) that constantly kept getting hung in the rocks. After spending the entire day pulling up the anchor to go free his mile-long casts, I was hard-pressed to subdue my exhilaration when he soon thereafter received a set of orders to a new command out of the area.
I also once spent a tournament day with a fella who couldn't decide which side of my not-so-stable boat he wanted to fish from. His pacing (and my rocking) back and forth continued until about an hour before weigh-in. Because it was the first time all day long he had stopped pacing, I just had to turn around and make sure he hadn't fallen overboard.
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