There’s a moment in time each year that seems to be so sweet. The orioles whistle while working on their nests. The bees bumble between each blossom. Love is truly in the air – from the birds to the bees.
Meanwhile, on the water, the beavers are slapping their broad, leather tails while I’m hunched over my tackle box clanging with as much force as Animal, the Muppet, on his drum kit. Yes, there were eleven months and two weeks to prepare for the small window time known as the panfish spawn – you don’t need to remind me! Yet here I sit, rummaging for an 1/32 ounce jig head and tail. There are crappies to catch!
Maybe the frustration started from getting bit off by a little, two pound northern. If it wasn’t for him and his razor teeth I wouldn’t be in such a predicament in the first place. He’s got a mouth larger than a smallmouth bass, yet they seem to thrive on the nearly identical forage in the same water. How did he earn such sharp teeth at just two pounds? Curse you, little two pound northern – curse you!
I confess, in a slight panic, I tend to go blind – what I may be rummaging for may be literally glaring at me below my nose, but I swear, most of the time, it’s veiled until I come back to it on the third or fourth campaign of looking for it.
The thing is, there wasn’t much to my first tackle box. It passed down to me by my Old Man: a Plano (circa ‘80s) that had three trays which accordioned open.
The top tray had a couple war-torn Rapalas from our annual Memorial Weekend trip at Lake Itasca. The middle tray had a few ¼ ounce jigs, an old float, and an empty spot where my panfish jigs once were located. The bottom tray had a few rusted hooks, a couple random split shots, and the infamous, Heddon Tadpolly in grey – back when I was eight years old, my old man put a clinic with the walleye population on Itasca. He never caught another with it in succeeding years, so there it sat immortalized – at least in my mind. Lastly was the bottom area that had various plastics, a spool with one lindy rig around it, and a pike-muskie pocket ID laminate. No panfish lures in here unfortunately…
I tried looking a second time in the tackle box starting from top to bottom. Again, I was out of luck.
I closed the lid, took a breath, and watched The Boys (Matt and Jake) each make a cast. Then I opened the box up and started from the bottom with the intent to work my way to the top. Eureka! Stuck to the back of a bag of plastic worms was a vintage, Mr. Twister sleeve that had two, white tails, a silver Colorado, and a white jig that had black eyes the size of a pen head. Clearly this was something my old man had purchased back in the day.
It wasn’t the black scheme I had been using before with decent success, but anything is better than nothing, right?
With a few twists and a couple loops of the 4 lb. fluorocarbon, a knot was cinched around the Mr. Twister. I took a second to look it over, and gave it a flip in some pads that had drawn an 8 inch bluegill earlier.
WHAM! Rod bent! There was far more heft with that strike than the previously mentioned bluegill. “It probably was another stinking pike, but much bigger than the last one,” I thought.
“Just my luck boys, I’ve got another one…it’ll just take one shake from him. You mind lending me a lure from your boxes?” I asked.
The fight continued for another ten seconds when Matt glanced over at my line after he reeled in his. At 6’7”, his head reaches the height that ospreys hunt at – far better perspective on the fight than mine. “I don’t mind, but that’s NOT a pike, Fox (a nickname he’s called me since high school)!”
“Then it’s gotta be a beauty of a bucketmouth!” I bellowed.
“Try again.”
Just as he finished, a big, orange blur the size of a dinner plate disappeared back into the depths.
“What the?!?” my jaw dropped. “You’re kidding me! Do we have a net in here??”
“Of course not – who needs one of those?” Jake spitefully shamed – Matt and I had given him the same treatment when he asked us before we launched the boat (“Who needs one when we’re targeting panfish?” we rationalized).
Big Orange returned a little closer to the surface only to shoulder its way to the black water below.
“Don’t worry, Fox, just swing it back over to me and I’ll barehand it.”
“Oh gosh, you’re kidding right?!”
“Nah, I’ve got this.” he assured.
His words provided little consolation – I had a fight to maintain. Drag was peeling. Line was straining.
Tension mounted in my psyche as Big Orange swirled the surface and darted back into the abyss. “You better not lose this!” I said to myself. We drifted enough out of the bay and into the main body of the lake to not be concerned with it wiggling the hook out with the aid of some vegetation or rocks. It was a matter now if the hook set was in the right spot. Or, worse yet, if Murphy’s Law wanted to strike a final blow on my fishing for the day where a larger pike could come out of the depths to sink its teeth around Big Orange and, in turn, snap my line. I had no time to worry for the worst; it was time to hope for the best…
“Alright, Matt, let’s see what you’ve got…I’m going to sling it over to you…We may have one chance.”
With a few cranks on my Pfleuger and a steady jerk with the St. Croix, I swung Big Orange up to the surface right in front of Matt. His giant, baseball glove hand swooped down behind Big Orange and scooped it out of the water and into the boat. It was a stroke of genius.
I pounced on Matt’s hand so Big Orange couldn’t somehow wiggle out of the boat. Then came the celebration:
“WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!”
“HAHAHAHAAAA!!! I told you! I told you! That’s how you scoop up a fish!”
“Duuuude! Look at this PIG! It’s literally the size of a dinner plate!!!!!!!! Thanks for the assist, bro! (as we gave a triumphant high five)”
“We eating it?” Jake joshed.
“Why wouldn’t we?” I egged.
“That Pumpkinseed needs to go on the wall, buddy.” He continued.
“Yeah, I suppose this is a good start to a decorative plate collection, huh?”
“You bet. Now let’s get some pics of this!”
On to the metal stringer it went. With each bull we caught after was another moment to check out Big Orange – the largest pumpkinseed we’d ever laid eyes on. It dwarfed the rest: measuring in at 10 ¾ inches long and had an 11 inch girth.
Dinner time was approaching, and we had a stringer of fish to fry. So we packed up and headed back to the cabin. Getting there from where we were at was quite a process; although the chain of lakes are connected by streams, half of the streams are too shallow to run the 9.9 Johnson, so wading in and dragging it upstream and over an occasional beaver dam is part of the process.
An hour later we got back to the cabin. By then, all the fish were dead (despite giving them water breaks at each lake to breathe a little). I ran up to the cabin to wrap Big Orange in Ziploc and tossed it in the freezer. Then I sent my old man a text with the news. Reception for the old flip phone I was using back in the day was spotty up there (and still is today), so a plain text was the only option. I didn’t get a reply from him until the next day when we were heading back home in the car.
It said, “Nice fish! You may have a state record.”
I had to wait another 45 minutes to finally be able to call him as my flip phone was on roaming – clearly the longest wait my life. I was chomping at the bit until finally my phone had two bars.
“Well, tell me about this fish!” He started. After giving him the details, he went on, “I called Mike (his taxidermist buddy) last night. He said you may have a state record with that length and girth.”
“How do I go about getting that done officially?”
“I don’t know. There isn’t much information I could find online.”
“I guess I’ll have to see if I can email someone in Fisheries. They’ll probably know.”
“I’d hope so.”
“I’ll let you know. In the meantime, I’ll swing by and drop it off in your freezer.”
After doing such, I got home and fired up the desktop – I had some research to do. Sure enough, my old man was right. I had the state record beat by ¾ of an inch in length and matched the girth. Unfortunately, there wasn’t any protocol listed online for verifying a state record, but I managed to scrounge up who to contact in Fisheries.
They got back to me the next day. I needed to take it into a local bait shop or meat market to have it officially weighed. It made sense, but my heart sank.
Mostly because when one freezes a fish, the fish shrinks and loses a lot of water weight – two demerits of doom. I learned at the local meat market that, after thawing out a whole fish, they lose a lot of slim too. My chance now was probably one in a million, but there’s still was a chance I said to myself as I slid big orange on the scale.
Anguish set in after reading it was 2 ounces under the record. The guys working behind the counter scratched their heads in disbelief – they thought for sure it was one by the sight of it. My old man’s hand on my shoulder provided little consolation.
“You’ve still got a trophy there – regardless of weight.” He said.
“Yeah, I’d be proud to have that on the wall!” one of the guys remarked.
I am proud of it – no doubt. But it serves as a bittersweet reminder. Always be prepared: have your tackle box stocked and have a protocol in place (a net, an accessible printout/screenshot of the record fish list for your state, etc.). There’s a chance you may strike the lottery on a fish that could take a million lifetime’s to land.
They say ignorance is bliss. I’ll vouch it’s the contrary. Your next cast could change everything. Be ready for it.
