Of Bass and Bass-tards

Apologies for the wait, but Gardner’s prodigal son has returned. I have made the journey from NY back to Central MA and brought my hard-earned fishing knowledge with me, here’s a quick recap of this past month.

I rounded out my stay in NY with a few goals in mind, ordered in levels of importance:

1) Talk to girls.

2) Catch a walleye, pike, and smalllie before you drive home.

3) Submit your Third Year Paper and don’t get kicked out.

As you may imagine, given my natural level of smoothness, style, and overall moxy, I was able to accomplish parts of 2) and all of 3) – curiously, goal #1 remains elusive. No matter, this blog is mostly about goal #2… unless you have a good research idea so I get a job or know a girl who digs the whole guy-who-wont-stop-talking-about-his-90-lb-drooling-dog-and-the-most-recent-fish-he-caught thing I’ve really cultivated over the last few years… I mean seriously, how am I not supposed to constantly talk about this handsome little boy?

Okay, okay, back to the fish. I actually ended my stay in NY with an eventful week. I hooked into quite literally a massive Northern Pike. It was easily the biggest fish I’ve ever hooked, it got so close to the surface I saw the body and it looked like a damn African Rock Python.

African Rock Pythons are one of the largest snakes on the planet (max length of roughly ~21 ft), only to be outdone by the Green Anaconda (~29 ft), which is native to the Amazon forest, and the biggest snake on the planet, the Reticulated Python (~31 ft), which is native to Africa as well. These snakes are not poisonous, relying on ambush and suffocation, they are known for taking on animals as large as crocodiles! You can thank a fourth grade science project I did for this information, my mom still has the diorama I made. See below:

Unfortunately, I was unable to land this pike, due to the fact my line was very thin and pike are notorious for biting through line that isn’t literal wire – which is exactly what this behemoth did. To say I was a little frustrated at this event is a bit of an understatement – I would really like to try some fried pike and I wasted my best opportunity. Fortunately, that particular fishing trip ended on a good note, as I caught this absolute slab of a smallmouth bass:

Not bad right? As all river smallies do, this thing fought like hell. I’ve caught bigger but this was a nice way to end my spring time in NY. I’ve been back in MA for a couple weeks now, and I was really enjoying my time trying to catch some stocked trout in places like this:

Just picture perfect nature, but notice I said “I was” enjoying my time. I haven’t had much luck catching trout, which is very much the norm for me, but I somehow got even unluckier. While fishing at a local spot I don’t go to nearly enough, I ran into this bass-tard:

That’s right, I ran into my old nemesis Tommy. I was out looking for massive bass (more on this in a second) when I found this absolute degen (short for degenerate) wandering aimlessly in the woods, trying to put a preposterous fishing vest on with his breath heavy with Wachussett Blueberry Ale. I couldn’t believe it, this guy had done nothing but text me pictures of stocked trout he had been (allegedly) catching to make me jealous, but I didn’t think I’d actually have to see him. But luckily, it appears not much has changed. Since we met up, this is the biggest fish Tommy has caught:

Pathetic, right? Well, I honestly can’t brag too much more. Like I said, the trout angle has been sparse, but I’ve been catching a decent amount of largemouth bass since being home, but mostly little guys. I’m not complaining, they seem to fight a lot more than I remember and are happy to bite just about anything, I saw this guy jump up at some flies and managed to catch him with a lure that was essentially the size of him.

Largemouth bass are awesome, they are literally everywhere and can get absolutely massive…. which is my goal this summer. You can find true giants in basically any small pond in your neighborhood. I have caught a few decent size ones but never a true giant, and since I wasted way too much time last summer trying to catch stupid trout (look, they are nice to eat occasionally but who really cares about them?), I’ve decided to completely reverse the situation this summer and try and find the biggest largemouth possible.

So I suppose I have some updated goals:

1) Talk to girls.

2) Catch a massive bass.

3) Think of literally just one good research idea so I can get a job.

And to be perfectly honest, the best way to accomplish all of them is to…

Cast and Pray,

Jon (bonus pic of Bubz below)