So it was June and I'd been catching good fish all week in the evenings but always timing it so I'd be at a certain shallow reef just as the rip set-up downtide. The trick was to get close enough to drop the anchor on top of the ledge itself without getting sucked up onto it in the back-eddy. Of course the 9 foot oar could push the Westpointer back into the flow but it was slick if you didn't have to untie the oar because the old sweep did double duty as a horizontal rod rack under the side deck......I just lashed the 2 rods on top of the oar with some seine twine and a slippery hitch to keep them from jumping around on the choppy run downriver. After that the fishing was a sure thing - just sling the fly over the transom and work it back in the current. The only challenge was getting the snake fly down past the schoolies. Easiest thing was to grab the 7/8 weight with the sink tip line that was tied on top of the 10 weight but to get the 30"+ bass you had to untie both rods to get to that 10 weight with a 400 grain fast sinking head. Other than that it had been like clockwork all week but by Friday night I just had to show somebody so I begged my wife to come along. She wasn't interested in fishing....I promised sunsets.....she wasn't interested.....I begged her because I knew no one would ever believe my stories if I didn't have her as my witness.
Finally she gave in for a short boat ride and NO fishing except just one bass to show her how incredible the week had been and how crazy this spot was. Of course I grabbed the 7/8 weight right on top to be quick about it but she wasn't impressed by the 26 incher caught on the first cast (yawn - "can we go home now?").
Resigning myself that I'd promised only "one fish" I pulled the anchor line back too fast and wound up drifting up over the reef in that back eddy.
Bending over quickly to untie the 10 weight to reach the oar beneath it so I could fend us off, I suddenly had my most brilliant idea ever. Instead of untying the oar I just got the 10 weight free and threw a quick cast back at the rip (snake fly was already tied on as always).
Sure enough I hooked up immediately on a bigger fish and just stepped aft to put a nice bend in the rod and to let the fish tow the 20 foot Westpointer backwards off the reef. My wife only complained that I'd promised "ONE fish" while I made excuses that I only hooked it so it could help us avoid running aground.
She remained so un-impressed that I just had to call my out-of-state striper fishing buddy to tell him the story of how I was now using fish as beasts of burden. He said something rude and hung up.
