I had just launched my little blue kayak onto Big Fresh Pond in Noyak in hopes of fishing away the night. It was late, yet still sometime before midnight. I was supposed to meet my two twin friends that I have known since my early skateboard days on the water. If you know a set of skateboarding twins that reside on or close to Big Fresh Pond there’s a big possibility that we know the same people.
The pond that I was fishing is extremely large, and has a small alewife brook in which hundreds of thousands of small silvery fish make their way up into the pond providing a perfect food source for any predatory fish ready and willing to eat. An ideal habitat to grow Largemouth Bass (Micropterous Salmoides) to an extraordinarly large size. Now, let’s not talk numbers in weight here, because then we could be stretching the truth or even telling tall tales. My only source and belief behind this idea was an article on the alewife migration in the Southampton press that spring.
If you consider yourself knowledgeable in the outdoors or even some underwater ecology let me throw out the information that the D.E.C. provides to you in hopes to filter out any confusion, complications, or disbelief. At 64 acres B.F.P. holds the following naturally reproducing species: Largemouth Bass, Chain Pickerel, Bluegill, Pumpkinseed, Brown Bullhead, American eel, Yellow Perch and also White Perch. Early in the season and occurring around the full moon in March it also holds alewife as well.
Anyways, so I started kayaking across the vastness of the pond in the general direction of the spot in which I “felt” they were launching from. On the way , as I was hugging the shores and covering ground (aka speed) an angry, evil bat thought it would be fun harassing me. It proceeded to fly close to my face and than, at the last second dart away. Until I had a clear moment to paddle away from its area’s, I was flailing my fishing rod and yelling! Bad word’s found their way up from my vocal chords. I am usually very agile and well-balanced on the kayak’s until that short moment during our battle. The bat was a strange experience and I cant be positive who got the better of the exchange. All I know is I think the vampire in me showed as well. For an eerie few seconds I had fell a victim to the full moon madness. It happens to the best of us.
After receiving a phone call we communicated by whistles. We docked our boats together through the wind of whistles and under the spell of the full moon as well. They had a big boat of some sort, and had obviously been drinking. It was an interesting sight to watch as they tried rigging up. We talked of tackle and lures. Chilled for a bit. They told me of a fish that they almost caught when they were younger. Those legend fish that are so big that they break your line before even seeing the boat.
Everyone has a big fish encounter at one point or another if you keep at it. Most stories and legends of the ones that get away are never believed. Every now and then someone will catch one of these things , just to prove that it’s no bullshit. I Believe their story.
And so we fished. We hung out, chilled, had some laughs and more importantly fished on. We fished around coves, corners, lily pads docks and other fallen tree structures. At one point I caught a small bass close to shore on a top water, jointed rapala. We all got excited. It was a nice experience as opposed to getting shut out. It wasn’t getting any earlier and I did have to work tomorrow morning. “or is it today” I think to myself as I look at the time on cell phone. I have to work today. I have to work TODAY. As I paddle my kayak on the big pond the song of “I have to work today yay me” finds it’s way into my head. This moon was making me crazy. Time to go.
We decided that it is, indeed, getting late and we should fish our way back. Wait which way is back?
My thoughts were interrupted by a big splash about 20 feet in front of my kayak. Even though my mind was elsewhere before that particular moment , I knew that the location in which the splash had come from was directly where I had just casted my tube bait. I set the hook.! The big splash was apparently a fish of some sort that came up from the depths to have a bite on my white tube bait that I was jigging along on the surface.
Fish on! I yell to the mystery twins. No wait. Big fish on! Excitement ran up my spine as I had to handle the situation properly using logic, reason and just the right amount of tension. I was dealing with a big fish here, there was no need for horseplay and I certainly didn’t want to pull and reel so hard as to make it only a story. When I finally got the fish to my hand on the side of my kayak, I got a good grip of the fishes mouth, stuck my hand in and pulled up a monster. It came up in slow motion. There was along pause when lifting the fish up before I saw its tail. Absolutely enormous. I thought to myself as we paddled towards each other , so I could give them a look. We were all amazed. This was the biggest bass that they have ever seen. I decided that the best thing to do was to paddle to shore for a quick photograph and an “official weigh in”. So we were off to shore, before all hell broke loose.
I’m not sure why I turned around to look at them, but what I did see was their boat going down. They were tipping over at a slow pace sideways. Now you’d think that something like this would happen fast, but being there and at the moment I recalled it being similar to the sinking of the titanic. The two had leaned the same way, and that was it. There was splashing and they disappeared.
Apparently they were under the canoe and swimming in an upward motion as to keep the boat up. Sucking air from underneath they struggled their way towards an area where they could touch.. I wasn’t sure if I should laugh or save them. At the moment I didn’t do either. I sat on my kayak with my jaw dropped. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I thought the moon magic had me hallucinating for a minute. This was a serious “man-down” incident and nobody laughs till afterwards.
We all approached the shore slowly, except they walked there dripping, splashing and dragging the canoe. They were not happy with what happened. Blackberry’s were lost and so were house keys. Bummer. One of them threw his shirt and went up the hill swearing, and the other hopped back in the canoe. Half way filled with water and ready to go down at any given moment, he slowly paddled up to me. At this point I couldn’t identify who was who, but I think he gave me a slight smile, shivered and paddled home. “peace benham”
Wow that was a trip. When I hit the shore, I carried on with my business, as to things properly and provide my lunker of a bass with a safe release. I took off my shoes and socks and rolled up my pant legs as to stand in the water and pump some water back into the fish’s gills. One of my hands reached into the tackle box and pulled out my digital scale. My thumb hit the on switch and I slid the piece under the gill of the fish and let it hang there for a second. With my free hand, I grabbed a lighter from my pocket and flicked the bic and held the flame to my digital scale.
I held the fish one more time under the full moon and admired it’s length and girth. This was indeed, a big largemouth bass. I stuck my fist in the fishes mouth, just to double check that this was really happening. Then I bent down on my knees and the fish finally swam off. Maybe to live out his years to eat the alewife’s every year. Fat boy himself. Go, swim away my friend. You were fun and I had a great time catching you.
I stood up and wiped my hands on my jeans and looked up at the stars, and the big moon and smiled to myself. That was one hell of a fish! As I put my shoes back on I noticed a bat fluttering in the distance.
There’s always been some unexplainable mystery involved in the full moon. Its an odd addiction and a crazy one. The warewolfs come out, canoe’s tip over and that crazy bat is coming back after me. Time to leave now. And as I walked back up the trail , the song found its way back into my head again. “Have to work today, yay me yay me” Shut up matt, your scale got to weigh a big fish today.
