I first met him at Windy Point, on Lake Istokpoga, almost 25 years ago.
He was a heavy-set old man, blinded in one eye from shrapnel in one of the wars,
kind of humped over with a slight limp in his left leg. He had a short white beard,
and he held a cane, but he didn’t seem to use it much.
“Thar’ ain’t no fish in this here lake, young fella, you mights as well go on home or
try your luck somewhere else,” he said, as he cranked up his old Johnson 9 1/2
outboard motor and ran his boat up on a home-made trailer.
“Makes me madder in hell when I think about how beautiful this lake used to be.
And the fishin’, why it was some of the best fishin’ in the country. You could come
out here most any day and catch bass till your arms were ready to fall off,” he
muttered to himself, not even looking my way.
“Not so anymore. You gotta really hunt for the bass, and when you do find ‘em,
they’re skinny little fish not much bigger’n my hand,” he continued, stumbling as
he stepped into the cab of his old beat-up truck.
I’m not sure if he wanted a response from me. If he did, he didn’t wait for it, as he
ground the gears looking for first.
I waved to him as he drove away, feeling a bit sorry for him and wondering why he
thought the fishing was so poor. That summer was some of the best fishing I’d
ever had on the lake.
Occasionally, I’d see him on the water or at the ramp, but he never seemed to
remember me.
Two old casting rods lay on the bottom of his boat, resting in about 4 inches of lake
water, with an old, rusted Kennedy tacklebox crammed so full of lures that the top
wouldn’t close.
I had seen the inside of his boat several times, always amazed at the antiquity of
his tackle. Both rods were short, Garcia Five-Star rods - one obviously broken and
repaired, the other with a broken tip. Both rods had Pfleuger Supreme reels that
looked like they were from the 50’s, with black nylon line. Tied on to each of the
rods were black Jitterbugs.
When I was a kid, back in the sixties and seventies, we used Jitterbugs for bass
fishin’ and caught lots of bass on them. I’ll always remember, my dad always told
me to use the black one at night. But I haven’t used a jitterbug in 30 years, and I
doubt many other bass fishermen today ever give the lure a toss, or even keep one
in their tacklebox.
Seeing the jitterbugs tied to his rods, I couldn’t help but remember the thrill of a
big bass ‘busting’ the lure as it made its way across an open stretch of water. Plop,
plop, plop, plop, plop…….
You never forget that sound once you’ve fished with a jitterbug in the silence of a
night fishing trip.
Many of you may not know this about me, but I worked in the senior housing
industry for over 20 years. I worked for a number of the bigger firms, like Marriott
Senior Living Services, buying land, building retirement communities, and
ultimately hiring and training salespeople to lease or sell the units.
Back then, I was overseeing new sales at a retirement community in Bradenton,
Florida. It was a great community offering continuing care, with 500 independent
living apartments, 200 assisted living apartments, and about 120 skilled care
nursing beds.
In my position, I oversaw sales, but occasionally, I helped with new admissions in
assisted living and skilled care.
Janet, the admissions specialist, had called me one morning to ask for my help.
She had a new admittance into assisted living, and he was not happy. The
gentleman was almost blind, and he had had a stroke, and he did not want to be
there.
“Git your damn hands offa me,” he bellowed, loud enough for everyone in the
admitting area to hear; this place is for old folks and sick people, and I ain’t
neither!”
I attempted to reassure him that everything would be okay, and he seemed to calm
down a bit by the sound of my voice.
“Do I know you?” he muttered, almost to himself. I replied that we had never met,
although he did look familiar.
A short time later, I had him settled in his room. Janet left, and I spent an hour or
so with him while he cooled off. I learned that his name was Bo, and he explained
to me that he was doing just fine. At 89 and almost blind, his son worried about
him and felt he needed help, so he arranged to have him moved here.
“Everything was fine until Gladys had to leave for Connecticut last week to take
care of her pop. She’s been helpin’ me round the house, cookin’ and cleanin’ for
the last couple a years. My son got wind of her leavin’ and made arrangements for
me to move here for a little while,” he explained.
“I won’t be here very long,” he whispered to no one in particular as if he knew
something no one else knew.
That’s when I remembered him. He was the same, crusty old man I’d seen many
times on Lake Istokpoga. He hadn’t changed much since the last time I saw him.
“Whar you from boy,” he asked, not really waiting for an answer. “I have a place
in Lorida,” he said, not offering any other information.
I recognized the old fishing rods leaning against the wall and the old tacklebox
next to his bed. I asked about his fishing rods, and he seemed to warm up a bit. I
told him I loved to fish for bass, too, and that I’d seen him a couple of times at the
lake.
Once he realized I liked to fish, he seemed a bit friendlier. I’d drop by to see him
almost daily and listen as he’d spin one yarn after another about all the big bass
he’d caught out of his secret honey-holes.
After a few months, we’d become pretty good friends, and I looked forward to
spending time with him. Eventually, I told him that I’d met him before, in fact,
several times at the boat ramp and that he was always quick to complain about the
spraying or the poor fishing conditions.
He gave a big belly laugh as I recounted the many times we’d met and how he’d
always said the same thing to me.
With a wry smile, he said, “I started doing that about 10 years ago hopin’ it would
discourage guys like you in your fancy bass boats with all them thar fancy
lectronic gadgets, from fishin’ the lake and maybe discoverin’ my honey-holes.”
“Don’t know if it ever worked, but you know how it is when you discover a good
fishin’ hole. You wanna do everything you can do to protect it,” he chuckled to
himself.
I understood what he meant. With all the bass fishing pressure some of our lakes
get, fishermen who find a good spot can become pretty tight-lipped.
“What’s the biggest fish you ever caught,” I asked as I passed him a jelly donut
and tried in vain to clean up the jelly on my new tie.
“Oh, that’d be Queenie,” he said, without batting an eye. “I’d guess her to be 26
or 27 pounds by now”.
Almost choking on my response, I said, "Are you kiddin’ me?" I was shocked to hear him refer to such a monster bass even existing, let alone actually catching it.
“A fish that size would be a new world record,” I said, much louder than I meant to
say. “What did you do with her?” I asked.
“I let her go, like I always do. I’ve caught her 6 or 7 times. You’d think she’d wise
up but she can’t pass up those jitterbugs. Especially the black ones. I don’t know if
she attacks it because she’s hungry or just that she’s that mean. But she always
gives me a run for my money. I’ve probably lost her as many times as I’ve caught
her, but I always take special care not to hurt her and I git her back in the water as
quickly as I can,” he explained.
“You know if she’s really that big, she’d be a new world record,” I said.
I thought about just how big that would be.
“They say whoever catches the next world record largemouth bass over 22 pounds
and 4 ounces could easily parlay the fish into 10 million dollars in endorsements
and such,” I said.
“How come you never took Queenie in to have her weighed and registered,” I
asked.
“Well, I don’t need the money, son. Got all I need in my trailer, boat, and fishin’
rods. What would I do with all that money? IRS would probably take most of it
anyway, and my son’s the only family I got, and he don’t need it. Plus, I wouldn’t
want to hurt Queenie, and you know once word got out, my secret honey-hole
would be gone forever,” he muttered, thinking through what he’d just said.
“I understand,” I said, but I wasn’t really believin’ his story. He wasn’t the first
guy who claimed to have caught a big bass and let it go. Most fishermen I knew
were prone to exaggerate, and I was pretty sure he wasn’t any different from the
rest of us. But I wasn’t going to argue with him. He was a real character, but far
be it from me to bust his bubble.
I took a week off during Thanksgiving that year, and when I returned to work, I
learned that he had passed away in his sleep. The funeral was held a few days later,
and I was one of only four people that showed up. I called his son to break the
news. He sent flowers.
His son had said he was always kind of a loner. He never had much use for people;
even those he put up with, he’d never take them fishing.
But he said he liked you, and I think if he’d ever gotten back home, he might have
actually gone fishing with you.
He thanked me for my kindness toward him. He said they had had a very strained
relationship but that he’d still miss him.
As I hung up the phone, I thought I was going to miss him too. What a character!
Weeks passed, and I all but forgot about the old man. Christmas was coming up,
and bass fishing had slowed down as it usually does in December, so I was busy
helping the community put up their Christmas decorations when Janet called me on
the phone.
“Do you remember that old man who liked to fish? The one that died a few weeks
ago,” she asked.
“Sure. I remember him, why?”
“Well, his son was just here to pick up his belongings, and he dropped off
something he said the old man wanted you to have. Can you stop by my office?"
she asked with a certain amount of curiosity.
“I’ll be right over,” I said as I laid down a Christmas wreath on the counter and
headed to assisted living. Wonder what he left me, I thought. It's probably one of those old fishin’ rods or lures. That’d be cool. They were probably antiques.
“Thanks for coming down,” Janet said. “His son said to give you this,” she
whispered as she handed me a small wooden box. “It doesn’t look like much, but he said you’d know what it was.”
I thanked her and opened the box, expecting to see one of his old jitterbugs, scarred and rusted from years of use. But inside was a note and a darkly stained fish scale the size of a silver dollar. The note was barely legible, obviously written by the old man himself.
This is one of Queenie’s scales from the first time I caught her. I noticed it in the
net after I released her. She’s a lot bigger now. I marked the different spots I
caught her on this little map; I hope you can read it. Just don’t tell anybody else.
She’s a sucker for a big black jitterbug. Good luck, and if you catch her, don’t hurt
her. Your friend, Bo.
The scale was huge. I didn’t know if it was real or not. It kind of looked like a fish
scale, but it was old and somewhat shriveled up, darkened with age, and
discolored. I doubted that it was from a big bass, though. More likely than not, it
probably came from a big old carp or a saltwater fish, but I knew a biologist who
could examine it for me and tell me for sure.
I dropped the scale off at his office the next day, and that evening, he called me
excitedly.
“Where’d you say that scale came from?” He asked, almost out of breath.
“Some old man gave it to me;” I said, “Why? Is it from a bass?
“I examined the scale, then called in several other biologists, and we all agreed.
That scale came from a bass at least 10 years old that weighed in the
neighborhood of 23 pounds or more,” he said excitedly. “Where’d you say the
scale came from,” he asked again in earnest.
Somewhat stunned in disbelief, I remembered the words from the old man’s letter,
‘just don’t tell anybody else.’
“I don’t know which lake he caught the bass in, but it was in one of the lakes in
Highlands County, Florida. That much I’m sure of,” I answered.
“Well, I’ve got about a half dozen people that’d like to talk to you about it,” he
shouted into the phone over the obvious crowd that was gathering around him.
Still in shock, I replied, “Sorry, but I need to stop by the nearest bait and tackle
and pick up a black jitterbug.”
I’m goin’ fishing!
