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Every time Larry King and I would meet by chance in a coffee shop we’d stick around for one more cup after everyone else had left.
We’d share adventures and misadventures of the great outdoors, mostly tales of storms and snakes encountered and great fish that got away.
Schoolboy mate Ed McCormick agreed Larry, our late friend, had his share of entertaining stories, but he was an even better listener, which made him unfailingly special.
We talked about tubing for crappie and bass and sports in general. As our ongoing escape from today’s harsh realities, I’ll share two of my most vivid “fish-less” encounters for you.
One morning at Lake Waurika’s Kiowa 1, my brother Bob and I tube fished along the shores. As I was entering a canopy of willow trees stretching across a narrow tributary, I could only imagine a large mouth bass laying in wait.
Halfway into the dense cavern, Bob told me to stop. “Look above you,” he said. As I focused on the willows, I began to count the snakes blending with leaves and branches One, two, three, four . . . way too many to count.
Movement is slow in tube fishing, especially if you are attempting to troll backwards. As I retreated to safety, I shed my waders and told Bob I’d wait for him in the truck.
Despite knowing that most water snakes are non-poisonous, neither Larry nor I could ever get use to one sliding along the side of our tubes.
Years ago, Jerry Nabors had a restored bass boat he was itching to launch. One afternoon he called and said let’s take a run out to Lake Diversion, which you could fish back in the day.
Storm clouds began to gather slowly as we motored across the calm mile-wide channel to some tree stickups in a distant bay.
Nabors slowed the boat as we neared an area of large tree stumps barely visible at the surface.
He caught a decent size bass on his first cast, and the day’s potential took our minds off the heavy dark clouds piling up in the west. Nature’s fury mounted suddenly.
Within seconds a huge storm hit with pile-driving wind and rain, and our craft was tossed against a tree stump. A softball-size hole had gashed the hull and we were taking on water faster than the bilge pump could handle.
Being caught in no-man’s land, we bailed and struggled to get the sluggish, waterlogged boat across the bay, into the safety of the launch slip.
The waves were high and came crashing in every second. It seemed impossible that the boat could stay afloat.
Somehow it did, and when we released the plug, half of Diversion’s water gushed back into the lake.
And so, by fate, some fishing stories have little to do with fish.
Ted Buss is a former sports and business editor at the Times Record News.
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August 09, 2020 at 12:01PM
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Memories of storms, snakes and no fish - Times Record News
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