I want to share a story of my boyhood fishing days with my best friend Mark. I have known Mark since first grade and all we pretty much did was go fishing. We would fish anywhere there was water that we could get to walking or on our bikes. Here is the story, as he wrote it, of that long ago summer day:
“Anyway, I didn’t want to let pass a fishing story you may not remember. The biggest bass I ever caught was fishing with you down at Magnolia Lake. The old quarry with an island in the middle almost across from the the Bristol Twp. Police/Municipal building. Not sure you remember it.
I had bought a minnow net a few weeks before and we were fishing with live ones in a cove on a corner of the lake. I think it was a Saturday afternoon. There was a big, half submerged log lying a few feet from shore and we (probably you) thought it might be good spot to try. After only about 10 or 15 minutes, my bobber started to go out. I wasn’t holding the rod at the time and I scrambled to get it. I had to resist the urge to just yank the line right away. I was not a very patient fisherman, but I waited a little bit before I set the hook. The fish started to run and took the line out in kind of an arc and GOT IT SNAGGED on the log. By the time I got out to the log, stepping into the shallow water, to untangle the line, the fish kept tugging and fighting against the log.
By the time a I freed the line, the fish was spent and it was more a matter of reeling in with only few furtive tugs. I pulled it up out of the water. We measured it and it was about 14 inches. Not really big, but it was fat with a lot of girth to it. We didn’t weigh it. It was a black bass, not sure if it were large mouth or small mouth, but it was the biggest bass I ever caught, even since then. Really it was the log that caught it and tired it out.”
Great memories and great times of a different time and place when, I believe, things were a little more innocent.