Now without doubt I am about to stir up a huge debate among all the avid anglers who ply the waters of North America in pursuit of their favorite finny prize.
Everyone has reasons why they choose their species of fish to be crowned the king. To each his own, and mine goes to the largemouth bass.
Reason being, when I caught my first bass, I was just a little guy, maybe 7 or 8. I remember standing on the bank of that cow pond and seeing the bass swimming along looking for prey.
And I can still remember the thrill to see that bass like a torpedo swim straight to my grasshopper on a hook when I tossed my line out into the pond.
After landing my trophy, which was a mere yearling bass, I too was hooked as it had been.
As I grew into young adulthood, a cousin of mine, the late Gerald Dykes, took me bass fishing in one of those bayous Louisiana is famous for.
He introduced me to bottom plastic worm fishing and again, the thrill of feeling the tap-tap of a bass accepting your offer goes lacking of words to express.
After I missed a couple strikes because of jerking too fast trying to set the hook, my cousin instructed me to give slack in the line and allow the bass to gulp the hook into its mouth because it only had the tail of the worm.
After getting the knack of how to be patient and allow the bass to run a ways with the worm, I soon was in business.
Then, it was on to spinner baits and lures.
One funny episode again happened in the hot month of July in one of those bayous in Louisiana near Sandy Lake back in the 1970s.
There had been a lot of rain and the large bean fields had water draining into what was called Bursley Bayou.
The bayou ran into one of the three rivers in the area, and bass were feeding up out of the river into the bayou on the insects and crawfish.
When we got to the bayou by means of the river in a 14-foot johnboat, we could hear the bass in a feeding frenzy.
Our guide, my nephew Jerry Dillon, had already scouted the scene out the day before and had caught a stringer of nice bass using a spinner bait called H&H.
You had to attach the double hook to the spinner bait when you opened the plastic package the lure came in.
As Jerry and another fisherman who had come along, the Rev. Noel Coker, were already casting and catching bass with every cast, I finally got my lure tied onto my line and started casting and catching bass — or at least they were snatching my lure, but as I reeled them in, they would turn loose.
After missing several strikes, it dawned on me in my excitement trying to attach the lure to my line, I had failed to place the double hook on the lure!
When I made the needed adjustment, I too started catching nice bass anywhere from 2 pounds to 4 and 5 pounds.
We caught bass until the ground wasn't level, as my nephew so wittingly says.
It was a memorable day for sure.
I would go on and land a few mounting size bass in my lifetime, three in all from casting a reel.
My first was a 7-pounder on a black worm with a blue tail in 1984 in a friend's small pond.
Later in the ’90s, I caught an 8-pounder on a Rapala surface lure and another 7-pounder on an underwater crankbait, both from a 7-acre lake I once owned.
The biggest mount to date is 10-pound sow bass that had not long laid her eggs or would have weighed in closer to 11 or 12 pounds. That was another unique catch as I call it my “dip net” bass.
My nephew Jerry and I were white perch fishing in the prestigious 900-acre Lake Caroline of Madison County in 2010 and I saw the bass surfacing and going back under. I dipped it up and saw it had been struck by a boat motor propeller on its right side, which was why it was not able to swim and was going to die anyway.
Most likely one of the many skiers that day had struck the large bass in passing in the shallows of the lake.
So yes, my pick of the king of fish is the largemouth bass.
No, I'm not another Bill Dance or one of the many tournament household names of the Bass Masters circuit. But I will always believe one day I will have that 12-pounder-plus up on my trophy fish wall in my mancave.
All hail the king.
God bless you and God bless America.
