Ah, fall is here. It is that magical time of year when my ardor turns towards the most beautiful of creatures. I speak, of course, of smallmouth bass. Sure, women have plenty to offer, but until they fight like hell at the end of a hook and taste delicious when grilled over an open flame, I’m simply not interested between September and November.

My demented fish lust is particularly bad this year, because I just moved to an area with some of the best Smallmouth fishing in the country. Imagine my surprise to find that the anglers here are trout purists. Fishing for trout here is a sacrilege. It’s like ordering a veggie burger in Nebraska.

I have nothing against trout fishing. Trout are an excellent summer diversion, but they pale in comparison to the mighty smallmouth. Trout live in picturesque mountain streams that bubble gleefully over pebbles and sparkle in the sunlight. Trout fishing is an art. The angler must carefully choose his fly, paying close mind to color and condition. He casts with a practiced grace worthy of verse, or at least a kitschy painting in a mall kiosk.

Bass live in mighty rivers that roar over submerged ridgelines and whatever Jim Bob’s Waste Disposal threw in that day. The fisherman is a wild, agitated man trying to cast in a current that could pull Mark Spitz to a watery grave. He must simultaneously juggle a bait bucket, the hook, the line, the minnow, his rod, and a lit cigar. It’s common to end up fishing with the cigar and smoking the minnow.

Sadly, smallmouth fishing is an acquired taste, mainly because it resembles a family fishing trip about as much as the Baton Death March resembled an afternoon hike. Still, with great hardship comes great rewards, and to me there is no greater reward than landing a three pound bass. So, in the interest of the public good I now present “The Beginners Guide to Smallmouth Bass.”

Smallmouth fishing begins with the choice of bait, and the best smallmouth bait is hellgrammites. A hellgrammite is a dobson fly larva that resembles nothing you’ll ever come across in day to day life. You should be thankful for this. Tolkien on his best day couldn’t dream up a creature as brutally ugly as a hellgrammite. If anything of size wandered into town looking like a hellgrammite, it would incite crowds of people to flee in the opposite direction.

Hellgrammites are the mobsters of the bait world. Why smallmouth eat them is a mystery, particularly because nothing looks less like food than a hellgrammite. I subscribe to the theory that the hellgrammites actually hold the smallmouth up at gunpoint and force the unlucky fish onto the hook.

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately for the beginner, hellgrammites are hard to come by in autumn. Minnows will suffice, but not just any minnows will do. Never, under any circumstances, can you buy minnows. Store bought minnows are weak. If they were people, they would live in a McMansions in the suburbs and drive lime green VW beetles. Much like people from the suburbs, they give up and die within minutes of experiencing the true outdoors.

You must net your minnows out of a native stream. This is the first of many circumstances where bringing a friend comes in handy. By “friend,” I actually mean “patsy.” Netting minnows requires two people, and it is a particularly nasty job for one of them. Your friend must splash about in the water and overturn rocks. He will fall several times into the creek water and mud that has the consistency and smell of raw sewage. There is also a distinct possibility that some creature will bite him. Your job, by contrast, is to hold a large net across the creek and make fun of him. Remember to remind your friend that your job is harder than it looks. Pretend to have some special, ill-defined skill that uniquely qualifies you to hold the net and smoke.

It is a well known fact among anglers that the best minnows come from rancher’s fields. However, you cannot ask the rancher for permission. Don’t ask why, its just one of the laws of the universe. This is why you must carry the bait bucket at all times. Any moment might bring a gun toting yahoo and several mean looking dogs your direction. If you’re carrying the bait, you can quite literally throw your friend to the dogs without compromising the trip.

If you make it to the river in one piece, there is one cardinal rule you must follow. You cannot, under any circumstances, fish from the bank. You must wade in the middle of the current wearing enough equipment to ensure a slow, painful death should your foot slip. If your friend goes under, you are required to save him, providing you don’t have a fish on the line at the time. Fishing from the bank is for children under seven and redneck families numbering less than six. Redneck families numbering more than six must sit on lawn chairs, use bobbers, and fish for carp with hotdogs. This brings me to my next point. If you need a bobber to tell you when a two pound fish strikes, hand in your rod and get your fish at Wal-Mart.

Finally, if you want the true experience, take an old man. Old men love bass fishing. Regardless of where he grew up, a man starts to get the urge to catch a bass around the time he turns fifty. Unfortunately, due to city life, many men do not recognize this urge and sink deep into depression. The final stage of this debilitating yearning is a fifty five year-old, balding man with a beer gut driving a BMW convertible. It is a sad state of affairs and you can help prevent it.

An old man who knows his bass fishing is a joy to have on a fishing trip. They are fountains of useful information. I knew one old bastard, Mr. Davis (old men never have first names) who kept hellgrammites in his hair. Of course, the hellgrammites were trying to devour him, but the end result was a handy way of transporting disgusting, predatory life forms without the aid of a fifty cent plastic container.

I don’t recommend this to anyone under seventy. Mr. Davis had a so much nicotine and booze running though his system that had a hellgrammite bit him, the poor creature would have died simultaneously of cardiac arrest and liver failure. Mosquitoes wouldn’t even bite him. It takes a lifetime of training to get your blood that toxic.

If you do get a stringer of bass, I recommend frying them in a cast iron pan with plenty of butter and a pinch of garlic salt. Even if you don’t, remember to have fun. Just ignore the fact that “fun” is fishing out of a boat with a cooler full of Yuengling.

Precision, you are an absolutely wonderful writer. You need to send that to every magazine that you can get your hands on. It is amazing! I don't like bass fishing--I don't have the patience--but I was tthoroughly entertained by that article. Publish it! It is to good to kjust sit here!

Great job! It even made me laugh a little!

This is absolutly brilliant and I completly agree with Angela986 that more people should see thins, but I'm so glad you posted it up here.

It's really funny (I laughed out loud at least three times) and yet still rings true as a piece of writing (not that I know anything about small bass fishing, but I feel I learnt something during this piece - now where is my unfortunate friend how wanted to go fisihing :P).

looking forward to more pieces from you :D

Apparently, I’m even greater than I thought. Joking aside, thanks for the input. These pieces take me forever because it is so painstakingly hard to misdirect the reader so the jokes work. It is good to know that it is working.

I do plan to submit this story, along with the first one I posted and two others, to internet humor publishers. I don’t have the time or the patience to put up with the sluggish nature of magazine companies and go to school. Besides, I think that the internet is the future of humor writing, particularly because I won’t have to censor myself.

I’ll post the other two soon, but in the meantime if there is anything even remotely wrong with either of the two I’ve already posted, please let me know. The publisher I have my eye on is notoriously hard to please, and I want to get these perfect. Nitpick the hell out of them. I need it.

Excellent stuff, Precision. You should write guidebooks!

I'm afraid I can't think of anything wrong with your pieces, so best of luck with your publisher.