I owe worms an apology.
In fact, I’m sorry I ever made fun of live bait in general.
But if nightcrawlers, crickets, minnows, grasshoppers and waxworms understand my fishing history, maybe they will forgive me.
My wife might have been more pleased than me at my Fourth of July weekend catch of a 19-inch smallmouth bass on a Northwoods lake—not because it was my best bass ever, but because of my bait choice. Michelle had the last laugh, because after years of cajoling her for only using worms, old-school baitcasting reels, steel rods and Dacron line (I’m serious), I caught a respectable bass on a worm, small jig and a bobber.
My career as a lure-using outdoors writer is now in serious jeopardy and any potential sponsorships by Rapala, Mepp’s or Berkley are dashed forever.
We spent a relaxing weekend at my wife’s parents’ lakefront property on Lily Lake near Pickerel. My daughter, Kalispell, entertained herself by trying to catch panfish with her little fishing rod (and she did catch a small bluegill). We were all using small worms, and I was in the mood to just relax in the docked pontoon boat and watch a bobber float aimlessly.
I’d not had much fishing luck on the lake before, other than an occasional small bass or bluegill.
But this time, I was secretly hoping I wouldn’t catch a thing, so I could relax and let the cares of work and family dissolve under a sunny sky.
I cast about 15 feet from shore and 25 feet from the boat. Within a few seconds, my small bobber hit the water, wagged a few times, then disappeared as the fish roiled the water. There was no mistaking that this wasn’t an undersized panfish or baby bass. This was a serious gamefish.
I’ve always been a fan of closed-face spincasting reels, particularly the Zebco 33 (I just don’t enjoy untangling snarled line), but on this afternoon, I had my USA-made Swede, a clear plastic spincasting reel. Not typically catching fish requiring much drag on the line, I had the drag set much too low. The smallmouth began to run, fighting every attempt to reel him toward the boat.
Despite the lack of recent fighting-fish experience (it’s been a few years since I caught a 23-pound mahi-mahi in Maui and a 22-inch black grouper on the Gulf of Florida), I knew to keep the line taut and the rod tip up as the little powerhouse made a run under the boat.
Meanwhile, my father-in-law, Roger Nitschke, grabbed his fishing net and got in position. The 5-minute battle ended with a golden-hued smalley in the bottom of the net.
It was hooked on the top lip, and the hook readily came free. We snapped a few photos, then released the fish to give another angler the same thrill I’d just enjoyed. My daughter was more than a little upset at my action, but after a few days of explanation, I think she finally understood the reason I released it.
My bass weighed about 3 1/2 pounds, according to a handy little calculator I found online. I never measured the girth of the fish, but this little app also guesstimates that.
A worm put this beauty in the boat, and I have to accept that (and my wife will never let me live it down). But I wasn’t always so down on live bait. In fact, my father only taught my brother and me to fish with worms. That’s all he knew. In childhood, I was a voracious reader of Outdoor Life magazine and once tried using grasshoppers on a hook for panfish. Wow! It worked like a charm.
But fooling fish, not catching fish for the pan, is the goal of most tournament and other patch-wearing anglers. This is the polar opposite of those who want to catch as many delicious walleyes, bluegills, crappies or catfish for the table as possible. But both groups want to catch fish. Some “food fishermen” even combine live bait with lures (as in tipping a painted jig with a worm, minnow or leech) to up their success.
But we all know that fish need to eat food to live. Most will eat insects. Trout love kernel corn. Carp love dough balls. Catfish love cheese, stink baits and chicken livers.
Some of us, having evolved our fishing goals to a perceived higher level, look at using these baits as cheating—not unlike baiting a deer, which is strictly illegal in many states.
But some of us also begin to take fishing too seriously, getting so wrapped up in the total catch weight or number of patches on our fishing shirts that we begin to forget what hooked us on this sport in the first place: the sheer love of a fish, any fish, on the line. The tug of the line. The giggle of a child. The bounce of a bobber as a bullhead or bluegill surfaces.
And on Lily Lake that day, a worm and a bobber reminded me of what I’d forgotten. Lures are great, and trying new ones is always fun. But don’t ever overthink this sport, or you just might miss the whole point.
To me, fishing is not a contest of man against man, and maybe not even man against nature, although on the surface it is. It’s really about man against himself. You and you alone can determine what you want from fishing, whether it’s cash, sponsors and trophies or the grin of a child on a summer day.
Thanks again, Mr. Worm, for taking me back to my childhood, if only for one fleeting moment.
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