THE
LAST CAST
By Ken Duke old dogs , new tricks
W hen I was a kid , bass fishing was different . Back when I was getting into the sport , you picked it up from other anglers , read about it in books and outdoor magazines and maybe watched a television show or two . Bass boats were 15 or 16 feet long , the most powerful outboard boasted 150 horsepower and the fastest reel on the market had a 3.5:1 gear ratio – but if you added the aftermarket “ high-speed ” gears , you could get it to 5:1 .
One of the first things anglers were taught was that you didn ’ t need to make a long cast to catch bass . If you could hit a pie plate at 30 feet or so , you were good to go .
And 30 feet was a good number if you were using the equipment we had in the 1970s . Rods were mostly in the 5 1 / 2- to 6-foot range . They had “ pistol ” grips , so two-handed casting was nearly impossible . Reels had few ball bearings , and lures weren ’ t terribly aerodynamic . A “ weight transfer system ” was something you did so your buddy didn ’ t fall out of the jonboat if you made a sudden move .
In the early 1970s , catch-and-release was a less tasty alternative to catch-batter-and-fry , and it was very new to the bass world – a practice that started among trout anglers but would soon spread like wildfire through bass fishing and beyond . Today , many biologists have told me that we should be eating more fish , that catch-and-release is too common . Nevertheless , I still release almost everything I catch , and I bet you do , too .
When I was a young angler , Zoom was a soft plastics lure company in rural Georgia , about to take the fishing world by storm . It was not a video conferencing system . In 1985 , if someone had told me I would be on a Zoom call , I ’ d be planning my order of plastic worms , not thinking about putting on a clean shirt so I ’ d be more presentable .
Back then , all the experts agreed that 10 percent of the fishermen caught 90 percent of the bass . Today , with so much education and technology , I ’ m certain it ’ s closer to 50 percent of the anglers catching 90 percent of the bass .
That ’ s basically a good thing , I suppose .
In the ’ 70s , if you had forward-facing sonar , it meant your boat was listing very far to one side . You needed to redistribute some weight before you capsized . And if you wanted to see a fish track your lure , you had to be in very clear water , not staring at a monitor .
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Pure fishing meant there would be no interruptions . I grew up on a farm with lots of cows . My fishing pond and creek doubled as their water supply . Cows were a constant threat to my attempts at pure fishing , pure hunting and just about anything else worth pursuing .
Way back when , a Power-Pole was a heavy action rod – one you could use to push the jonboat away from the bank – and a shallow-water anchor system meant that you had run aground . Many is the time that I had to explain that my running aground on a mud flat was simply an early effort at shallow-water anchoring and not simply bad navigation .
We even had a version of “ Spot-Lock .” That ’ s what I used to keep my dog on the bank while I waded Big Creek for bass , bluegills and some sort of perch that we called “ Eisenhowers .” Keeping my black Labrador out of the water was always a challenge , and no , his name was not “ Spot .” He was Bubba . Maybe it should have been called “ Bubba-Lock .”
When I was getting started , the most famous bass angler in the world was Bill Dance . Today , it ’ s … well , that hasn ’ t changed . It ’ s still Bill Dance , and he ’ s still wearing the same cap . Only difference is that instead of a single TV show , he ’ s got multiple TV shows and YouTube channels and a Facebook page and an Instagram account , and so do hundreds of other bass pros and experts looking to make a name for themselves . It ’ s a different world . Yes , bass fishing is different today . But the bass are the same . And they ’ ll still be the same when I make my last cast . There ’ s something comforting in that .
MAJORLEAGUEFISHING . COM | AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2021
ILLUSTRATION BY JOE MAHLER