Lake Keystone Fishing
I hadn't caught a sand bass in a dust storm in years, spring break
early 1960s, but I caught one the other day. Actually, one of several, so
ferociously were the white bass charging the shad up onto the shallow points in
the back of Keystone's Salt Creek arm.
I was wadefishing there early in the afternoon. I had the whole place
to myself. A fine, brown haze smoked the sky everywhere you looked, but more
particularly north, towards Ponca City. The air smelled like fresh dirt turned
by a plow.
So terrified were the shad that several times they shot like hot,
melted silver splashed from a crucible right up onto the brown sand where they
flopped gasping for air. I didn't feel sorry for them. They had made a choice.
Like Jerry Clower's coonhunter, they could crawl out onto that sandbar and die
dehydrated, or they could jump right back out into that water and kick every
sandbass'--they could find.
Some of them jumped back in. All of the others got eaten by a
persistent flock of gulls that just kept working that shallow shoreside water
next to the sandbar, and then worked it some more, bone white screamers
fighting one another for bits and pieces of oily flesh. Life is tough, and then
you die.
Some of the best fishing of the year is taking place on Lake Keystone
right now, and it will continue right on into November. The fishing is cheap
and easy, no boat necessary; just a handful of silver or white lures, anything
resembling a shad, and tossed into wave action around a rocky or sandy point is
going to put fish in your cooler. It's been "happening" for at least
a month, now.
If you have a boat and prefer loading and unloading a boat down a ramp
rather than getting your pants wet, then do so. You'll catch fish, too. More
than me? I don't know.
I usually wadefish all of September in Levis and tennis shoes, and
used to on into October. Now, I like a pair of waders when the bird migration
is on, and there's a little nip to dry air. You would not believe how quickly
summer's hot lake water is cooling.
All of the fish I caught the other evening weighed a pound,
pound-and-a-quarter, or right at it. All of them, fifteen, maybe twenty, were
big enough to fillet. I didn't keep one. I took some pictures and let them go.
I have fish in my freezer I caught this summer that I haven't eaten. Fish are
bad to stack-up and hide in the bottom of a freezer. Not good.
I have friends that will eat them, unable to catch their own for one
reason or another. Some will turn into Christmas presents. For real. Wrapped in
white butcher paper; tied with a red ribbon bow. Ho, ho, ho.
Some deer meat will go that same merry route, hearkening back to a
time in my youth when folks would still accept fish or game as gifts. I know
who those folks are, and they know me. There aren't many left. If you're
wondering why I haven't offered you any, It's because I am afraid you will
touch the package with a long pole after I leave, and feed what's in there to
your cat.
Which reminds me: I gave some day-old fish (fillets, even) to a
friend, a young friend, a couple years back who did exactly that. They owned up
to it a couple weeks later.
"How'd you like the fish, so and so?"
"Conrad, I don't know how to cook fish. Don't you have to use
grease or something?"
"Well, yeah. Several 'somethings', actually, will make it taste
better. Or you can microwave it with a little vinegar on top."
"I gave it to Prissy. She wouldn't eat it. She's used to
tuna."
This is how lists get formed. Prissy doesn't know it, but she had her
chance.
Bessie Zachary would take anything I brought her and got mad if I
filleted it. She wanted to clean the fish herself, the old-fashioned way, which
is only one of the reasons I loved her. Don't get excited. Pam knows all about
it.
The dust was still blowing at dark. The air still smelled like dirt. I
love this country. I will live out my days nowhere else.
Some bigger fish moved in. The water began to geyser occasionally.
Stripers, maybe. The gulls were still dipping, diving, scooping bills into the
water out there in the brown haze. I cast again, trying to hit one with a
leadhead.
Something big grabbed my Larew baby shad and headed fast for the dark
water out deep. Striper? Big black bass? Flathead? I don't know. All three are
possibilities at dark out there on those windy points.
I cranked down the drag on my open-faced reel to slow down the fish,
and my fairly fresh, six-pound line went "ping!". Just like that. The
worst part of a deal like that, is not getting to at least see the fish that
beat you.
I don't know if there are any twenty-pound stripers left in Keystone;
there used to be a lot of them until the lake started shallowing up and losing
its oxygen saturation. Big stripers need deep, cold water with plenty of oxygen.
Maybe this was one of those "hold outs". I've heard there
may still be some. Any nut in a dust storm might catch one, even me. The best
fishing of the year, even in a dust storm.
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