Reclusive bass emerge for spawning season

I came eyeball-to-eyeball with a largemouth bass this week, and I wasn’t even carrying a fishing rod.

Late spring and early summer is bass-spawning time, and the usually reclusive fish do it all right out in the shallows.

I found the bass — actually a pod of four nice bass — while loping along the banks of a small lake looking for panfish. Panfishing leads to nice bass often enough that I carry tackle for both fish whenever I visit a warm-water lake or pond.

I was wearing my polarized sunglasses, and I spotted the four fish lurking over the clean gravel nests they’d fanned clean of twigs, weeds and a crushed beer can.

Bass nests often are in one or two feet of water, and they look like bright craters against the green bottom.

Anglers tromp along this bankside path all of the time — the trail, which winds through a lakeside forest, is beaten down to rocks and gravel. But I suspect most of them don’t wear polarized sunglasses, which eliminates the surface reflection and allows you to see into the water.

Polarized glasses also make the world look a little sharper when you’re just walking or driving around, but that’s not always a good thing.

My polarized sunglasses are my most important piece of fishing equipment. I’d rather fish with a junk rod and reel than fish with state-of-the-art tackle and no sunglasses. Spotting fish — and other things underwater — is a tremendous advantage, and it’s also a lot of fun.

If you wear polarized glasses, you often get to see fish following — or even taking — your fly or lure. And, like the other day, you see fish that other anglers never see.

Anyway, all four bass were pretty big by Western Washington standards. One fat, egg-stuffed female was probably about six pounds. One male bass — whom I got to know very well while trying to take his photograph — was maybe three pounds and sported a distinctive white spot on his jutting lower jaw.

Largemouth bass are the thugs of warmwater lakes and ponds. They have huge mouths, and they’ll eat just about anything that will fit in their jaws. Their jaws point up and jut out, and they all have the air of a gangster in a 1930s movie.

I’ve seen bass eat bluegills, ducklings, crayfish and each other. Every bass angler can tell tales of casting a 6-inch-long lure and catching a 5-inch-long bass.

Confession: I tried to hook the fish with my panfish tackle when I first saw them, but they had spotted me, so they were very, very wary. Bass, as fish go, are pretty smart. They do get very aggressive and cranky when it’s time to fool around and make baby bass, but they don’t lose all caution.

I had to leave, but I decided this was a great chance to take photographs of bass in the wild.

I went back the next morning with my camera — equipped with a polarized filter — and crawled through the bankside brush. I found myself on my stomach behind a clump of bankside grass — and about three feet from the bass.

It was very cool.

The bass hovered over his nest and tried to woo the big, egg-laden female. He also nipped and chased off a couple of other male bass.

Bass might be big voyeurs, as some fish just hovered nearby and stared at the shenanigans.

The weather made getting a good photo tough. The clouds kept blocking the sun, so the bass would turn into a shadow in the water.

The bass, which are mostly greenish fish, also liked to hover over a patch of green moss while keeping an eye on the nest.

But, every now and then, the bass would swim right over the clean gravel nest. It was like watching a stage spotlight shine onto a singing star. That bass would come into sharp view.

I took 378 photographs on my digital camera, but only nine or so were keepers.

Still, this new way of fishing without casting a line looks like a new addiction.

I found I didn’t want to catch the bass I spent an entire morning watching. I kind of liked the bad boy, and it didn’t seem fair.

Chester Allen’s fishing column appears Fridays in The Olympian. He can be reached at 360-754-4226 or callen@theolympian.com.