A Petrified Bass

 

       Several years ago, after a fishing trip to Arkansas’ Bull Shoals Lake, my Uncle Norten, the best fisherman I   ever knew, walked into his favorite morning café with a fish story even his buddies at the Lone Pine Restaurant wouldn’t believe.  He had them looking at each other with winks and nods as he declared that on a fishing trip just a couple of nights before, his nephew had caught a “petrified bass” of better than five pounds.  He wasn’t actually lying; it was just a matter of choosing the wrong word!

We had fished most of the night, and by 7:00 a.m. I was bone tired.  It was daylight, but the submerged lights on either side of the pontoon boat were still burning, and threadfin shad were circling by the thousands, their masses making a slight whirring, rustling sound in the water around us.   The shad nets were so full of shad you could barely lift them out of the water.  We had an ice filled cooler stuffed with walleye and crappie.

       I hooked one of the shad on to a quarter ounce jig-head I had just tied on, and cast it out away from the boat toward the steep rock bank about thirty feet away.  Immediately a fish took it. I set the hook, and the fight was so-so, even though I could see in the clear water that it was a pretty good bass.  In fact it weighed a little better than five pounds by my best estimation, even though it fought like a bass half that size.

       Examining the fish, I could see why.  Apparently it had been injured at one time or another, seriously enough that one side of its body was stiff and inflexible, like it was made from a hard Styrofoam.  I called Norten over to look at it, even though he had just landed a nice walleye and was much more interested in it than my rather ordinary bass.

       And then he too was amazed.  “Never seen nothin’ like it,” he told me.  “That bass is stiff as a board.  Wonder how he swum like that?”

And that’s when I said it…”Yeah, he’s been injured and those muscles on one side have ‘atrophied’.  It’s a wonder he has been able to survive.”

       So he was a little miffed at his card-playing friends at the local restaurant.  If he said we caught a petrified bass, they ought to believe him, he figured.  I bailed him out by coming along a day later and putting an end to the snickers and winks.  Uncle Norten hadn’t exactly lied.  The fish was atrophied, not petrified.  And while they accepted what I said, they weren’t real sure what the difference was either.

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      NEWS FROM  THE  CHIEF

 

The Chief of Enforcement for the Department of Conservation is Travis McLain.  I’ve been talking to him about some of the times that I believe conservation agents have violated laws and the rights of hunters and fishermen.  He sent me a form for people who have a complaint against an MDC agent to fill out and send back to his attention.  So now you can actually be heard. I don’t know what good it will do but it is at least an attempt by Mr. McLain to listen and take some kind of action.  

       If you will get on the Internet and go to larrydablemontoutdoors.com you can see copies of that two-page form.  I encourage those who are being or have been victimized unlawfully by agents to use this form and send it in.  Until now I didn’t know it existed and it may be something new.  If you want my help in getting the form and getting it filled out, contact me… P.O. Box 22, Bolivar, Mo 65613.  I have copies of the form I can send or email to you. You can also email me to get it … www.lightninridge47@gmail.com

 

       I encourage you to also read the story on that website of what the MDC is going to do with the bear hide they confiscated from 13–year-old hunter Wylie Williams. There is a photo of the bear Young Wylie killed legally. Guess where it is going and how much it is worth?  It is an unusual situation because Jefferson City Judge wrote in his decision that Williams did not prove he was innocent. I  didn’t know any  judge anywhere could decide a case because someone couldn’t  prove they were innocent.  Also the agents who accuse him of using bait went to the site days after Wylie had hunted there. They went to the place he killed it days later…on a date that the bait would have been legal.  Because of the power of the MDC and their lawyers, newspapers and other media cannot use this story.  I can, and I have… larrydablemontoutdoors.  Please read it..