A truly epic tale of two youngsters catching a bass
(Through a sewer grate)
Here’s a story for the storybooks. This one’s by Eric Abramson. He’s got his own awesome substack called The Cast About - I strongly recommend you subscribe to it. His writings caught my eye when I read his amazing post about fishing dreams. I have so many fishing dreams and have had them for decades so I reached out to him and I’m grateful I did because he provided this unreal story. It’s titled:
“Grate Bass”
or
“The Odd Couple”
One of my favorite fishing memories isn’t even of my catch, but my friend’s. It was a largemouth bass caught by my buddy Alex, who taught me most of what I know about fishing. A lot of what he knew about fishing was taught to him by his grandfather, who had many stories to share but only nine fingers (that was one of the stories).
Alex and I started fishing together in the 1st grade, about as early as you can have memories about friends. We were a funny pairing at first. Alex approached life with gusto and a lack of fear that I’m surprised he survived. He was always willing to jump off something that seemed a little too high or be in places we weren’t supposed to be. He wasn’t a chronic rule-breaker, more so just saw the rules that did or didn’t hinder him and acted accordingly. I was not timid or shy, but I did like my rules. I was scared of breaking them, scared of hurting myself, and scared of ending up with only nine fingers.
This dynamic caused a lot of our fishing outings to be constant volleys of “Should we be doing this?” returned with a “Who cares dude let’s go.”
A tug of war that always ended with Alex getting fed up and trudging forward to hop the fence, go down that trail, or fish in the office park that had “No Fishing” signs. I would begrudgingly follow, partially because there is safety in numbers, and partially because Alex’s fishing instincts were almost always right. Despite our young age it felt like he was an encyclopedia, knowing how to handle every fish or situation we might come across.
“How do you hold a bass?”
“How do you tie that knot?”
“Can you unhook this one for me? I can’t get it.”
My questions must have gotten annoying (he told me so much in the moment) but they reflected how little I knew and how much I wanted to know. As my interest and reading skills grew over the years, I started devouring every fishing book or magazine I could find to learn what I could.
“Today is overcast, I should use a gold colored lure.”
“It’s early spring, I should use a smaller frog instead of a bigger frog.”
“I’ve seen a pickerel there, let me use something bright and fast.”
I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was an analytical kid that liked the order of it all. If X is happening, Y will catch me a fish. I eventually became a competent and confident fisherman, taught Alex a thing or two, and knowledge-wise we entered much more equal footing in our quest to become the best fishermen in the world.
—
This catch happened down the street from my Dad’s house in Northern New Jersey. We lived about 30 minutes from Manhattan in a town littered with ponds, lakes, and BMWs. We were fishing on the lake I considered my “home lake”, which has a busy road slice through it, and both halves of the lake connecting under that road out of sight. The water on the left side was full of algae and floating weeds, perfect for fishing a hollow-bodied frog. The water on the right side was clearer, but submerged trees and branches lay in wait to snag your lures. Regardless of which side you fished on, you had to check your backcast every time to make sure you didn’t hook one of those BMWs speeding down the suburban road.
—
This particular day we were going mainly for bass, but as happens sometimes, would have taken a bite from anything. I had been skunked before, but as my knowledge and confidence grew, each skunk felt more like an indictment of myself and my abilities as a fisherman. I wracked my brain for some tip I forgot, some miracle tidbit that would tell me what to tie on next and catch me my bass for the day.
Alex had a different approach. He assuredly knew what should work, but when it didn’t he would move onto something else, just to see. When the gold Rapala didn’t work (despite it being overcast) he switched to silver. When that didn’t work he switched to firetiger. When that didn’t work he switched to a crankbait. When that didn’t work he switched to some lure I had never seen before... so on and so forth. Constantly trying, constantly tinkering, constantly giving himself a shot.
I was spent and ready to pack it in, already thinking about the reasons today didn’t go to plan– hoping to pinpoint the rule in place and go “Aha! That’s why they weren’t biting today.”
Alex had a little more left in him. We had thoroughly fished on the left side of the road, and the right side of the road. But we had never, ever, thought to fish under the road. He was using a big curlytail worm on a jighead and said:
“I’m just gonna drop it through the storm grate to see if something is there.”
My thoughts came fast with “Fish through the road? Is that even legal? Isn’t that too close to the cars? There’s no fish under there, right?” but all that came out of my mouth was “That’s stupid.”
“Who cares?” Alex replied.
Plop. He dropped the worm in the grate, barely had time to give a mischievous grin, and within one second his worm got bit, HARD. He reared back in a hookset and immediately his rod was bent. He had let out so little line that he then just lifted the rod up, and suddenly we were staring at a bass suspended in the air... on the other side of the grate. It was staring right back at us, literally hanging in disbelief, as if to say “Are you f—ing kidding me?”
We were standing there stunned that this actually worked, and flabbergasted at how to land this thing. We were on one end of the line, the fish was on the other, and there was a storm grate in between us that was both too heavy to move and had holes too small for fish or hand to fit through.
“I can’t believe that actually worked.”
“We need to land this fish.”
“I know.”
Our middle school brains went to work and I cycled through everything I knew about fishing to no avail. With no memory of whose idea it was, we somehow landed on a plan. Alex was going to open his bail and let the fish swim. Where? We weren’t sure, wherever its little fish heart desired. We were hoping that something in the universe would drive it to swim either left or right, out from under the road into open water.
He opened the bail and we waited. His thumb and forefinger were slightly on the line to keep some tension and feel where the fish was going. For some reason he was looking up in the sky as if that allowed him better feel of the fish. Slowly but surely, the fish swam, and Alex, one steady pull at a time, let out line. Eventually, miraculously, the fish swam to the right side of the road, the side with the clean water and submerged trees.
Phase 1: Complete. Phase 2: Commence. I climbed down to the bank and tied on one of the many jigs I owned because some article told me they would catch me big fish (despite the fact that I had never gotten a hit on a jig). The plan was for me to cast perpendicular to his line, parallel to the road, reel slowly, and snatch his line with my jig. Yes, like a grappling hook in an action movie.
Assuming it might take 100 tries to get it right, I could hardly believe it when on the first cast I felt my jig come tight with his line. Silent and steady, with a look on my face that said “no way”, I reeled up and soon had his line in my hand. We had a real shot now.
He hopped down onto the bank, I handed him his line, and he went to work; handlining the bass with his right hand, and wrapping the line he brought in around his left hand. He looked like he had even done this before, what gives? Before long, the bass was at the bank and in Alex’s hands. We snapped a picture on a digital camera that is now probably buried in one of our parents’ basements, and watched it safely and heartily swim away from us, back under the road.
Only after we released it did we both exhale. We looked at each other with happiness and confusion, amazed at our own stupidity and genius. Finally we burst out laughing and said things like “Did that just happen?” If we were older we would’ve shared some beers but the high-fives were just as crisp. It felt like we just pulled off an epic heist, catching and landing a fish out from under the nose of a skunked day.
“I can’t believe that worked.” Alex said. I couldn’t either. I’d certainly never read how to do that in a book.