Cool evenings demanded a return to waders and the comfort of a favorite flannel shirt. Both caused smiles while walking downstream on long gravel bars past a pocket water summer hotspot to a deep bluff pool in search of smallmouth bass. A Bald Eagle glided silently above the oak trees that line the bluff. I suspect we were in pursuit of the same quarry. I knotted a size-8 crayfish pattern to the business end of my 5 wt., but a couple of dozen fruitless casts led to a flybox search. A nearby spray of escaping minnows led to the selection of a marabou streamer. The third retrieve triggered a vicious strike that quickly became a deep-water stalemate accompanied by long seconds of accelerating anxiety that the fish had reached an entanglement. I plucked the taut line like a banjo string, hoping to annoy the fish into moving. The ploy was surprisingly successful and led to a head-shaking leap. Finally in hand, I was surprised to discover that it was a Largemouth Bass. Others of lesser size were caught, but my original target species was not among them.
Plucking Largemouth From Snarls
