It was June 14, 2005. I awoke at daybreak. The robins outside the bedroom window were chirping loudly to welcome the new day. I struggled with Mr. Inertia briefly before deciding to take advantage of this rare spring morning without rain and do a little bass fishing. After brewing a pot of coffee, I headed for Lake Wooten.
It was still quite early as I arrived at the public access at Wooten. It was cool and overcast as I launched my small boat. I was fishing solo. The water was gin clear. It is always a clean water lake but water clarity varies a little with the seasons. You could see submerged logs in 20 feet of water. This is a lake where I have seen dozens of very large bass casually cruising the shorelines. I have caught a few of them up to about 4 pounds but have seen many that were much larger.
Big bass in clear water are always a challenge to catch. Once they see you they seem to develop a serious case of lock jaw. Many times on Lake Wooten I have had small schools of 3 to 6 lunker largemouth bass actually come up and swim along side of my boat. They acted friendly but maybe they were only taunting me.
As I mentioned, these bass are very difficult to catch. My best success has been with long casts of a floating minnow lure. I have tricked a few of them with jigs and plastic worms but floating minnow lures, especially early in the morning or late in the evening, have provoked the most strikes.
I started around the shoreline casting to my favorite places where I had seen big bass on previous trips. I began seeing the lunkers casually finning the clear waters but they wouldn’t bite. I made a long cast off shore where I knew there were lots of submerged logs. A nice strike and I landed a one pounder. I continued down the shoreline to Wooten’s only small pad field. I made another long cast and had a smashing strike that looked to be a nice sized fish. After being unable to get the fish to strike again, I pulled into the area and saw a nice sized bass of about 3 pounds glaring up at me.
I continued along the shoreline. At the far end of the lake there are lots of old submerged logs. I made another long cast with a size 11 Rapala. There was a huge swirl as a big fish slurped in the lure. I set the hooks hard! I knew it was a nice fish but didn’t realize just how big. I saw the fish almost immediately as she streaked past the boat heading for some big logs.
Fortunately, I was fishing with braided "Pro" line of 15 pound test. It has a small line diameter about the size of 6 pound mono. I had set the drag of the old Mitchell 300 very tight because I had high hopes of hooking one of the big slabs that I knew were there. In spite of the tight drag, the old Mitchell screamed as the bass ripped off about 30 feet of line. The fish was much stronger and had more endurance than most of the big bass I have caught over the years. She fought much like a big smallmouth.
She finally tired however and I grabbed the net. I can’t even remember the last time I netted a bass but a heavy bass and 3 treble hooks can result in hooks being embedded in flesh other that that belonging to the bass. After bringing her aboard, I placed her in a large cooler of fresh water with a little ice in it.
She was tired and I was satiated. I poured a cup of coffee and just sat back and enjoyed the moment. I slowly drank the coffee and then got my chatillon scale and tape measure ready to check her vital statistics. She was deep and very broad shouldered and had vivid coloration. In other words, she was beautiful. I was almost disappointed when the scale, which is quite accurate, registered only 5 pounds, 13 ounces. She was 21 ½ inches long. I had a camera but no cameraman. I didn’t want to keep or kill this big beauty so I set the camera on close up, shot her in the big cooler and then released her. The photo was not very good but at least I do have her on film.
Another nice morning on the water at one of Mason County’s many beautiful lakes.

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