It was here that I hooked a leaping bass and passed the rod to my daughters when they were no more than 3 years old. It was the first time that they had held the business end of a fly rod. In his later years, my grandfather often looked on as I fished there, pointing out the birds, whose Latin names he knew well but whom he referred to only by first name %26#151; and that name was always Charlie. Whenever I hooked a fish, he exclaimed, %26#8220;Oh, by golly!%26#8221; which was his way of commenting favorably on the universe.Last week, just ahead of a cold front, my father drove our friend Stephie%26#8217;s golf cart to a favorite fishing hole. On the front panel of the cart she had written the words Apu and Anyu %26#151; which means father and mother in Hungarian %26#151; two words that you are not likely to find on the transom of any good ol%26#8217; boy bass boat, but which seem right at home in the retirement community. Our destination was the far shore of the farthest corner of the golf links%26#8217; hundred-yard stretch, a remnant of wild Florida, a last bulwark against the unstoppable march of McMansions along the water%26#8217;s edge. There was a thick stand of trees on the opposite bank, garlanded with flowering vines and thick tropical underbrush of the kind that causes New Yorkers to think %26#8220;snakes here.%26#8221;I cast a bass bug on my 7 wt. fly rod, stripping it in so that it gently popped and burbled. My footfalls must have startled a fish lurking on the banks. It sent forward an accusatory wake as it bolted from cover. %26#8220;Let%26#8217;s try around the corner,%26#8221; my father suggested. %26#8220;It just looks right somehow.%26#8221;I took his advice. Fifty yards further along the shore, I false cast once and dropped my bug three feet from the bank. The instant it landed, a healthy largemouth, which I judged to be two pounds, smothered it. I struck. It leaped once and was off.%26#8220;Spring training, Dad,%26#8221; I said. %26#8220;I%26#8217;m out of practice.%26#8221;The next afternoon, at the same spot and the same hour, Mr. Bass consented to a rematch, and I reprised my defeat. Checking my fly, I noted that the gap on the hook had opened, which is one of the hazards of catching your back cast on a shrub or tree limb, both of which you are liable to do at least once a day. This was starting to feel silly. The bass had me bedeviled. On my final day, I headed out at 4 p.m. Along the way, a little pond caught my eye. It looked inviting. The water was placid but full of potential, pregnant with %26#8220;bassness.%26#8221; I often have this feeling and, after a few fishless casts, just as often chalk it up to the baseless optimism to which all anglers are perpetually heir. But, I swear, it really did look good. It was girdled, for the most part, by hedges, so I reasoned that anglers would pass it by rather than risk getting caught up in the shoreline vegetation.What the heck, I told myself, I%26#8217;ll give it a few casts.I tied on a streamer %26#151; a small marabou leech %26#151; and flipped a light backhanded cast along the hedges. Two strips and the line became taught. A sweet little bass, of about a pound, rocketed from the surface. My rod bent and bounced as I fought him in. For the next half hour, every cast produced a fish, some up to two pounds. I was lost in a cast-and-catch reverie, a kind of rapture that raises your angling self-esteem and leads you to think that you have turned a fateful corner and that henceforth, you are destined always to catch fish with ease.Flush with confidence, I went back for a showdown with my tormentor of the last two evenings. The scene could not have been more idyllic; the golf course was bathed in sunset light that burnished the water and threw long black shadows against the emerald fairway. There was no one on the nearby green save a dozen egrets and a thrillingly graceful ibis. On the far side of the channel, a family of marsh hens paddled and clucked peacefully, undisturbed by the presence of a somnolent gator, half submerged.I parked the golf cart well back from the bank, stripping line from the reel. I was careful with my false casts so that only the leader passed over the water. The fly dropped, about six feet from shore. I stripped it in and cast again. Pow! He hit it and took to the air. He looked better than two pounds, maybe three. He sounded. I kept him tight and under the bend of the rod. He leapt again, and then a third time. I finally had him on the reel when, on the next jump, the line went limp. He had spit my hook yet one more time. Must be a par-4 largemouth, I thought. I%26#8217;ll get him next year.
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