There are lots of things that are best done at night. Going to a drive-in movie is one. Frog gigging is another. And who wants to park on lover’s lane in broad daylight? Well, maybe when it’s cloudy, but definitely not in broad daylight.
One thing that is best done when you can see what you’re doing is fishing. In fact, nighttime fishing is clearly advised against by the American Medical Association, the Daughters of the American Revolution and PWHPFB (People Who Have a Pea For a Brain). Why then do bass fishermen like to stage night tournaments?
I tried it once, and – like peeing on an electric fence – once was enough. My friend Leroy Wilson, who is the biggest liar on the face of the planet, had a bass boat and had apparently exhausted his list of willing nighttime fishing partners, so he asked me to join him.
“It’ll be fun. Heck, I caught 14 pounder last week,” he said.
The only thing weighing 14 pounds Leroy ever caught was a pumpkin that fell off the back of a produce truck. I declined his generous invitation, but he persisted, reminding me that he once took my trash to the dump three days after I had cleaned fish. So I accepted.
We met late that afternoon and blasted off along with another fifteen boats at 6:30. It was a beautiful evening with a warm breeze, calm waters and a pink sun that began to settle softly into the horizon. This nighttime fishing isn’t all that bad, I was thinking. We even caught a couple of bass. Then it got dark. Not sorta’ dark, but awfully dark, as in, “I can’t see a damned thing” dark. It was so dark that a barn owl wouldn’t have tried for a mouse.
A voice in the front of the boat asked how I was doing. I assumed it was Leroy, or perhaps my Guardian Angel wondering what the hell I was doing fishing at night.
“I’m alright,” I responded, “but the last cast I made never returned to the water.”
“It’s probably on the bridge,” Leroy responded.
“Bridge? What bridge?
Then I heard a car going over our heads and I hoped we were under a bridge and not dead.
Nighttime fishermen apparently take an oath to never use a flashlight or any other artificial means of seeing what is going on. They fumble around in the dark and feel for things.
“Use your instincts,” Leroy had advised.
I tried relying on instinct and couldn’t find my tackle box. Then finally my hands wrapped around something that felt like a big plastic rectangle. It was my tackle box, but I opened it upside down. The sound of a couple hundred hooks, weights, and lures bouncing off the deck of a bass boat is not what you want to hear, nor is stepping on a Zara Spook and lodging both sets of treble hooks in your left tennis shoe. That makes walking around a little awkward, by the way.
Then Leroy caught a bass. A keeper.
“Whatcha using,” I asked him.
“A green worm,” he said.
I couldn’t even locate my worm box, much less identify one of the occupants as being green.
“Here, use one of mine and make sure you put some of this concentrated garlic fish formula on it,” said the voice in the front of the boat.
Using pure instinct, we somehow exchanged a single plastic worm and the spray bottle. I rigged up as best I could and then attempted to spray the concentrated formula on the worm.
Pfffhhsssttt!
A stream of pure garlic juice hit me smack in the face.
“AAACCCHHHHTTTT!” I choked.
“By the way, make sure the little arrow points away from you,” Leroy reminded.
Now he tells me!
We didn’t win the tournament, but as a consolation, I will never again have to put garlic on anything I eat. So that’s something, I suppose.
The trouble with these night tournaments is that they take place after dark. Oath or no oath, next time I’m bringing a flashlight.