August 04, 2008 02:41 am
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“The Natural” is one of my favorite baseball movies — not my all-time favorite, but up there with the best of them.
One of the things I love about the movie is how the team clings to Robert Redford’s character once he replaces Bump Bailey in the outfield. And along those same lines, I love when one teammate asks about the lightning bolt on his bat, and then the next day, that same teammate is taking batting practice with a lightning bolt patch on his sleeve — and this slumping teammate all of a sudden starts smacking the ball around the field.
By the next game, the entire team is wearing the lightning bolt patch.
Funny, isn’t it. Confidence will do that to a person, and the same goes for fishing.
Recently, I changed my lure of choice to a Chatterbait because I was slumping. While this wildly popular lure isn’t anything new, I stayed away from it mostly because I have always fished what I know, and what I know gave me confidence.
But as the doldrums of summer started banging out a familiar tune, I decided to give the old lure a try on a day that seemed doomed from the start.
Having not hit the lake in more than a week before a recent outing, I decided to fight through a late-afternoon rainshower to get after some bass.
By the time I found my rain coat and loaded the boat it was too late to lament in the fact that the trolling motor was dead.
So out come the oars and down the shoreline I stroll, but not too far, because I’m wasting daylight and the rain has subsided.
Excited to try my new frog Chatterbait, I settled on an overhanging tree just yards from the dock. Cranks into my first cast I knew I’d like the action of the Chatterbait — the metal guard really causes the lure to vibrate and shake.
Two more cranks, three, then WAM!
The first cast to a new lure that I have absolutely no built-up confidence in and here I’m fighting something, and it is strong.
I crank a few more times, guiding the fish away from the shoreline and toward the boat. And then, as if by karma, the line stops retrieving and the boat starts pulling toward a snag.
“Are you *!@$%# kidding me?” I yelled. Yes, I did yell this. Here I’m sitting on a $6 lure, fighting a fish on my first cast in retreating rain with no motor, and I snag up on whatever the fish drove me into.
After a few more expletives, I went to work on unsnagging my new $6 lure — a steep price for one cast. A few more minutes went by, and nearing defeat, I released tension on my line and contemplated cutting free.
Tap, tap.
Something was there. Something. A snapper?
Pulling up dead weight, I started believing more and more a snapper was the likely culprit. Still, for $6, I jerked a couple more times, pulling upward a force I had little desire to tangle with.
And then it happened again — tap, tap — and my line was free, and with that, a big ol’ four-pound bass came shooting out of the water.
The lunker was the first of nine that day, all on the Chatterbait, and another 10 followed two days later, six of which came on the Chatterbait.
Hmmm, funny how the agony of losing a $6 lure ended up buying me a new lease on confidence.
Doug Monson is a Free Press copy editor. He can be reached at (507) 344-6352 or by e-mail at dmonson@mankatofreepress.com.
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Doug Monson