Creek Fishing With Pistols

 

It was perhaps the meanest fish I have ever tangled with in my life: All teeth and attitude. So what if it was only 12 inches long? I’m telling you, it was all teeth and attitude.

It was a baby long-nosed gar; probably last year’s hatch. It drifted up out of a clear, deep water hole to a silver and black, floating Rapala stickbait I was tossing from a float tube into a creek southwest of Mannford a couple of days back. It glared at the lure, then lunged at it, popping it into the air which made me laugh. The fish was barely longer than the lure. That made it funny.

I let the lure lie there on the surface about 10 seconds, and then twitched it. The baby gar got mad about it. Pow! He flipped the lure straight back up into the air again. I laughed even harder, like I would have had I been attacked by a munchkin with a whiffle ball bat. It was ridiculous.

When the ripples died on the water, I twitched the stickbait again. “Crack!” Man! This time he hit the lure so hard it sounded like he broke something. Then when I twitched the lure a fourth time, I noticed it wasn’t running right. Probably the line was tangled in the front treble hook. I reeled in to check.

Dang! The cotton picker had broken the lure’s clear plastic bill plumb off! I’ve never even had a bass do that to me, but a fish barely as long as the lure? A lure that cost nearly seven dollars? You want to get Vollertsen’s attention, get in his wallet.

I looked back out into the water from which all this destruction had come, and there hovered the mighty midget gar, finning easily in the clear water, eyes right on me maybe 10 feet away, seeming to dare me to go ahead and make one more cast. “Go ahead! You wanna’ piece of me, big boy? Throw back over here!”

I started laughing again. I love tube fishing creeks in the summertime. What I lose in banged up crankbaits, I more than make up in gasoline saved and fun had. It’s a swap I’ll make every time. I’m the only person you know that’s been beat up by a footlong gar and came out of the experience with a blackeye and a smile.

Usually I catch a few nice bass, perch, channel cats and crappie, but the fun comes in other packages as well. I have beaver slide down creek banks right next to me. I see mink running the creek banks. I see deer come to water in the riffles in the middle of the day. Squirrels run the limbs crossing over the creek like distant voyagers on aerial highways, shadows in the air.

Turtles? Snakes? Oh, geez. Here I go laughing again. Snakes and turtles all the time, and always at eye-level. Snakes are the main thought in Jerry Ballard’s mind when we foot-paddle our way back to the truck at dark on the creeks up in Osage County. Jerry will tell you, if you ask, it’s not as easy foot-paddling a tube with only one of your hands grabbing the tube for leverage, while the other is clenched around the handle of a .357 magnum loaded with snake shot. I am a jokester, but not around Jerry at dark.

There’s hardly anything prettier than a single golden cottonwood leaf, dead before its time, sideslipping its way down to a clear pool of water from ninety feet up in a powder blue sky on a hot, summer day. Pretty, and lonely, and a clear reminder of the brevity of life in the midst of lushness. O’ come all ye faithful, and fish the creeks while you can.

It’s a rare trip to the creeks that I don’t hear something big and heavy breaking brush back away from the creek bank, close, but not where I can see it. What was that? Snap! Crack! Pop! Rustle, rustle, rustle. What WAS that?

It could’ve been anything. A deer? A cow? A horse? Probably. One of those, or even all three of those. Or... well, there have been mountain lions, bears even, reported moving into the country and... well, other things. The closer to dark it is when you hear the heavy movement in the bankside brush, the more likely it is to be your worst nightmare. Jerry won’t let you carry the gun. Ask me how I know.

Here it is only a week after Memorial Day and already the jet skis, powerboats, and skiers have run me off the lake. The other night I came off the creek with three bass (pound-and-a-half to three pounds), two crappie just big enough to fillet, and one channel cat about two pounds. Caught them all on a Rapala with a good bill.

I’ll be back. Probably with my own pistol.

Copyright © 2009 Conrad M. Vollertsen