Cast Your Nets on the Other Side

“Ain’t no fish in that lake!”

That’s what they said.

We’d just moved into Camp Singley back in 1977 and I was raring to go fishing. But all our new neighbors and even Bud Shaftoe said the same thing.

“Ain’t no fish in that lake!”

I couldn’t understand how that could be true. Highland Lake is a 7-mile long stream-fed lake. A small dam on the south end of the lake creates almost 700 acres of impounded water ranging in depth from 7 to 30 feet. Surely there had to be one or two fish in a lake like that!

But Highland Lake had a reputation for not being great for fishing and it didn’t take long to figure out why. Being a former river, the lake consists of a series of large sections connected by smaller channels. There are many coves and back-inlets covered with lily pads and dotted with tree stumps. No one ever seemed to be fishing these areas. Instead, most fishermen stayed out in the clear water – where people swim and waterski and boats speed along spewing out frothy wakes and rolling waves.

Something told me it would be smart to cast my line on the “other side” – where lily pads and tree stumps offer the fish population some degree of protection from the crazy activity out on the lake. So I pushed the tiller of the little 3-horsepower Evinrude, swinging my little green Sears Jon Boat into a nearby cove. Taking out my favorite lure, I made the first cast.

Nothing.

Well, not exactly “nothing.”

I pulled up a ten pound weed fish. Give or take a pound.

And then I knew the reason most people fished out in the open water. It was nearly impossible to retrieve a lure from the coves without snagging huge clumps of vegetation!

Discouraged by this sad turn of events I opened my tackle box and scrounged around inside to see if I had anything that might work. There was a silver Mooselock Wobbler and a couple of red and white Daredevles. No good. The top-water Jitterbug and Hula Popper would be useless too. I was stuck.

But then…

Lying at the very bottom of the tackle box was a black plastic worm. The worm had been given me by a guy I met fishing one day at the Quinapoxet Reservoir in Holden, Massachusetts. I’d seen him pull out a nice bass and asked what bait he was using.

“This,” he said.

He held up about a 5-inch black worm.

“Its plastic. I put my hook in it like this,” he demonstrated, sinking the tip of the hook into the worm. “This makes it more or less weedless. You let it drop to the bottom and every once in a while give it a little twitch. You have to be really patient with it.”

Then he gave me one of his extra worms and wished me luck.

But I never used the black plastic worm. No patience, I guess!

However…there I was, frustrated, sitting in that little green Sears Jon Boat on Highland Lake. And like all the other fishermen out there, I was catching nothing. I wondered if maybe it was true and there are no fish in that lake!

Or maybe I could give that ol’ worm a try.

I don’t remember if it was on the first, second or third cast into the stumps, but suddenly the 8-pound test line jerked tight and the tip of the fishing pole just about doubled over toward the water’s surface. My reel’s drag whined loudly as more line was fed out to the monster on the hook. The fish instinctively knew to dive for the bottom and run toward any obstruction it could find. I tried to keep the pole high, alternately pulling up and reeling down as fast as I could.

It was quite a fight. The bass, it turned out, was not all that big but it was covered in weeds, making the whole load extremely heavy. I was out of breath and just plain tired by the time I got him in the boat.

And I was HAPPY!

A much younger me showing off that first bass to Bud and Priscilla Shaftoe

Pulling the rope starter, the little Evinrude motor coughed to life and I chugged off to Bud and Prilly Shaftoe’s camp. I couldn’t wait to show Bud there ARE fish in Highland Lake!

I named that place “Bass Cove” and for years caught many nice bass there among the stumps and lily pads. But as time went on other people saw me pulling fish out of Bass Cove and invaded it with their big fancy bass boats and high priced fishing gear. I don’t know if they fished it out or the bass just decided it was time to relocate. The fishing dried up. After a while I decided it was time to move on too, so I putt-putted off to find other places the fish were hiding.

That was forty years ago. Since then I’ve caught hundreds of big lunkers in Highland Lake which itself has come to be known as a great place to fish. Every year there are several bass tournaments and I laugh a little bit as the guys cruise the lake in $40,000 boats. Most of the fish they catch are no doubt the kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids of the fish I’ve caught (and released) in that little green Sears Jon Boat with the 3-horsepower Evinrude.

Today it makes me proud that the best fisherman on Highland Lake is my son Peter. He consistently pulls in big bass. On any given night during the summer Pete and I can be found somewhere on Highland Lake fishing the stumps, lily pads, rocks and any other structure that fish seem to hide out in. We talk a lot about life while we’re out there and solve all the problems of the world. He seems to catch more fish than I do, but that’s okay by me. These days I just enjoy being with my boy out there on the lake where there “ain’t no fish.”