Top-Water Bass - This post goes to eleven.

In the last week of August, one can get the first sense of summer’s oppressive heat losing its sweaty grip on the desert. Sure, it is still ball-sizzling hot but a little breeze here or a cooler-than-normal evening is enough to give hope. Two hours south and a few feet higher you can step out of the truck into a noisy afternoon sun at Arivaca Lake and feel the change. The lake is low, the weeds are slimy and the bass are agitated.

Violence of Action

You remember that angry little short-haired blond kid from middle school that always punched everyone? His step-dad was an auto mechanic or a construction worker, and his mom smoked like a pack a day and watched Court TV? In my opinion, largemouth bass with their constant scowl and tough skin are like that kid. Just plain mad at the world.

“I don’t give a damn that it’s bigger than my head,” he says to himself. “I am totally going to eat the crap out of whatever the hell that thing is 'cause it's pissin' me off!”

Sometimes you feel like using your hemos to tie tiny midges to 8X tippet, and then sometimes you just want to tie half a deer carcass to a 20lb leader and make Neanderthal noises while you swing your 8wt around like some sex-nuts-retard-strong barbarian.

This kind of behavior also helps keep those damn I'm-not-here-to-fish-I-just-want-to-row-my-canoe-through-your-cast people out of your way.

Dog Will Hunt

The other day before a trip to Arivaca, I met with my friend Mike Leed Jr., and he gave me a tube fly frog to try out. After throwing it for a few minutes, I nicknamed it “the shoe”, (that Aaron hand-modeled for us in the image here) cause that’s what it felt like on the end of my 320 grain Sage Bass line. A big wet shoe. But with that 1/0 Gamakatsu Octopus hook shoved up its rear point-up it walked across the weeds with authority. I threw that damn thing all day, and all I got was a sore shoulder. I blame something else.

There are those that tie flies, and then there are those who tie flies, and my friend Mr. Leed Jr. falls into the latter category. He is a fishing madman, and he can tie the crap out of just about anything you might need, or he will instruct you in tying it yourself if you are so inclined. Recently at the local shop, he had a class on tying the grass frogs he loves to dearly. I attended and took part in the hour-long process of creating such a masterpiece. (Mike says it takes him 30min when not showing all us tards how its done)

Under his expert tutelage, I tied the below sum-bitch. He looked at it and nodded, “That dog will hunt.”

It is so on.

The Goods.

-Alex who knows that you can't just make ten louder.

This is my serious face.

The woosh was followed by a sloppy slap as the frog disappeared into the green cottage-cheese lumps. Lead wrap, 3-dollars-worth of deer hair with a side of rabbit: It was like throwing a wet shoe.

From “nine-o-clock” to “three-o-clock” across the top of the bubbly goo, unevenly-spaced trails converged and I was the center point. Bass are down there; I know they are down there. I have seen them eating, swimming around; a weed wiggling here and a splash there. Not nearly as active as last week, but this week I brought a bazooka to a knife fight, and I left the “messing around” at home.

I take up some slack and give a little tug. The wind apparently has something very important to show me on the other side of the lake, but I stick my fins deeper into the mud and tighten the chin strap on my hat.

There is a little disturbance out in front as the frog shows itself and crawls to the top of the muck. I give a second little tug and it hops back toward me. There is a little shiny puddle of open water showing and a little voice tells me that is where he wants to go. Tug, wait. Tug, wait. Tug, wait, as the frog drags another spoke of the wheel in which I am the hub.

Almost there, right on the edge and clean he sits ready to take a little dip. One more tug and he plops into the openness: Exposed and alone, his hind legs flair out as his little rubber front legs dangle limply, at the mercy of the wind under a painfully blue sky.

My eyes are stare daggers at the water as my fingers tense and settle around the rod waiting for the action. There is wind but I can’t feel it. I think there is something crawling on my face but I don’t care. Time slows and the frog sits and I wait for the explosion. I am sure it will come. It has to come because there must be a fish there; hungry and mad and stupid and powerful. I sit and wait.

But there is no fish. Not this time, and I “tug, wait” the frog back to my feet and repeat. This is the sine-wave-excitement of walking frogs across September weed beds.

-Alex who feels upon reflection that fishing and not catching fish is suspiciously similar to messing around, no matter how serious you act.