JACK WOLLITZ Time stood still in bass zone

In an unusual occurrence that failed to catch the news media's attention last Sunday, time stood still on Lake Erie's Presque Isle Bay.
The clock froze for me as a lifetime of fishing frustrations bubbled away into five hours of unparalleled success in almost surreal circumstances.
My day began normally. Up before dawn, I launched the boat and busied myself rigging lures and chit-chatting with fellow bass tournament competitors. After modest success the previous day, I was confident, but cautiously tempered my enthusiasm with the knowledge that what I had found could easily have evaporated over the past 24 hours.
The first two stops Sunday morning did little to excite me. Hustling spinnerbaits over the same weed beds that produced a pair of nice 16- and 17-inch largemouths Saturday, I hooked only two short bass and a 30-inch pike.
Bone-jarring ride
So I jerked up the electric trolling motor, battened down my rods and fired up the Merc for a bone-jarring ride against the whitecaps pushed by the 25-knot westerly wind.
My watch said 8:52 as I arrived at my third spot and idled over the flat, my eyes alternately peering at the depth finder and then to starboard to make visual contact with the weed line that had produced one of Saturday's keepers. Soon enough I found what I was looking for, dropped the trolling motor and stepped on the pedal to position the bow so my casts would quarter into the breeze and clip the edge of the aquatic grass.
The first casts came up empty. But at 9:07, my tandem willowleaf spinnerbait stopped abruptly. I swept the rod back and drove the hook into what immediately felt like a solid fish. When the arc of the rod tightened toward a full circle, my senses jumped to full alert, ready to react to whatever this fish tried to deliver.
Here I pause. There is a fine line between reality and the dream world. My imagination shifts into slow motion sometimes and this was one of those times.
The big sow bass stuck her head through the surface, where she wallowed with mouth agape and gills flaring scarlet. Too big to get her body out of the water, she dove and pulled against the six and a half foot casting rod with all she could muster.
Biggest bass he boated
I finally slipped the landing net under the bass' enormous belly and lifted the load aboard. At 5 pounds 8 ounces, she was the biggest bass I've boated this year.
Slow motion switched back to real time after I secured the lid on the Ranger's livewell, and I returned to my perch on the front deck. Before I could fire another cast, however, my ears picked up an unmistakable commotion -- fish busting shad on the surface.
I blinked in disbelief at the scene 50 yards downwind. A half acre of Presque Isle Bay was boiling with bass -- largemouths and smallmouths -- crashing through a school of terrified baitfish.
To call that scene a "feeding frenzy" fails to do it justice. For the next 10 minutes, every cast produced a fish between 13 and 14 inches.
As quickly as they appeared, the schoolies sounded. I did a 360, searching for their next eruption, then picked up a rod rigged with a small crankbait and pitched a cast to the edge of the weeds. A 3-pound 4-ounce smallie grabbed the treble hooks and tail-danced at the end of my line.
The next five casts produced a trio of 16-inch largemouths, then the action slowed. That, however, is a relative term.
The breeze blew me off the 10-foot breakline to a 20-foot trough, so I grabbed a spinning rod from the tangle on the deck and tossed a tube worm toward the point where the bottom sloped to the depths. Before the lure hit bottom, a 3-pound 8-ounce largemouth slurped up the offering.
From time to time, an angler finds himself in a situation so unlikely he must pinch himself to check whether he's dreaming. I pinched. It hurt. And the fish were still biting.
For the next four hours, I hovered over the 100-yard stretch of bass-littered lake bottom. The action continued, with brief interludes that I welcomed so I could retie my lines and replace my tattered tube worms.
The wind whistled. Gray clouds churned. My battered fingers bled. Once or twice a spritz of rain pattered around me.
Nothing unpleasant mattered for four hours as I found myself in the midst of the most bountiful bass bonanza an angler could imagine.
So how many bass did I catch? I could tell you exactly how many because I kept count. But you wouldn't believe me.
I can tell you this, however: Time stood still as the bass just kept on coming.
jwollitz@shermanassoc.com