Old lure has a special color unlike any other
"It's been so long since I've had a bite, I've forgotten what a crappie looks like," I told Wrong Willie, self-styled crappie guide. He'd been fishing Lake Fork pretty heavily and announced one day that he could fill a live well with crappie in a couple of hours.
"Look in the live well, then," he said.
"If you're talking about that one itty-bitty anemic fish you caught first thing this morning, I think I'll decline," I said.
"You're using the wrong lure."
I reeled in the white maribou jig. There was no fish attached. I showed it to Willie. "This is the one you suggested last night."
"Might have, but it isn't working today. Change lures. Use a chartreuse color."
I held out my panfish box full of lures. "Pick one."
"Just use that chartreuse there, like I said."
I poked a finger in the box. "You've forgotten. I'm colorblind."
"It's the one beside that green one."
I gave him a look. He didn't get it. Finally, I tied on something that caught my interest and hoped it might catch the interest of a fat crappie.
It didn't, and half an hour later, we moved to another spot. "I have this place located on my GPS," he said.
I lowered a jig into the water and felt a tug. When I pulled, the line snapped. Encouraged, I tired on another lure. Five minutes alter, the line snapped again. Willie followed suit, and broke off three times until we realized we were probably hanging up on the underwater structure.
"Move out a little," I told him. He shifted farther back in the boat. "I meant move the boat, idiot."
He did. We didn't break off anymore, but we didn't catch any fish, either. We moved to the bridge to fish the pylons. At least we were in the shade.
"Tie on something that looks like this," he said.
"Will that work?"
"I don't know. I just wanted to watch you try and find one this color."
"I hate you," I said, and tied on something with eyes. I cast past the pylon and let the lure fall. It immediately tightened, and I pulled in a very respectable crappie.
"It looks like our luck has turned," Willie said.
I caught another, then another. He failed to hook anything, so he selected a different lure from his tackle box and pitched it overboard.
Nothing.
My luck, at least, had turned, and we were into fish.
It was like a day I hadn't experienced since I was a kid and the Old Man took me crappie fishing one blistering hot June. Dad and I went out in his old V-hull boat with a minnow bucket full of "grinners." He tied us up in a forest of standing dead timber and lowered a minnow from his position in the back of the boat. His rod immediately dipped, and for the next two hours, he caught fish. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't catch anything.
We switched places, and as soon as he was in my seat, he caught fish. We switched rods. We measured the length of the drop to be sure I was fishing at the same depth.
Nothing.
I even lowered my minnow inches from his. He caught the fish.
But this day with Willie was even better. He tied on every crappie lure in his tackle box, but no matter what he did, I still caught fish on my one little lure, and he caught air.
"Give me one of those," he demanded. "What color is it?"
I grinned and showed him the mottled lure that had somehow shifted color from age, dirt and rubbing up against rubber worms that stained it unidentifiable. "I don't know, but it's the only one I have in this color."
Willie stared at the orphan lure.
"Let's call it the color 'Reavis,'" I said. "That makes as much sense as chartreuse salmon to me."
And then I caught more fish on my Reavis lure.
Reavis Wortham's e-mail address is reaviswortham@att.net.
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