Call of
the Wild
Getting back to the natural
R
ain, hail, snow, HDTV, there are many things that keep
us from getting back into the beautiful outdoors where
we belong. If you’ve been hibernating for the last couple
months or simply never taken time to explore the Oregon
around you, now is the time. It’s just about warm enough.
Maybe you should try something new and addictive, like
getting hooked on bass fi shing. Perhaps some of your outdoors skills
have gotten rusty, and you need to get back on the horse — literally.
It may be time to strip down and get natural with it at your local hot
springs, or fi re up your neglected BBQ grill in great Northwest tradition.
This is Oregon: We live here because it is beautiful and because we
are surrounded by big trees, big rivers, lakes and mountains. From nature
we have come, and to it we should return. In this EW Outdoors Issue,
we urge you to take it outside and face the feral —
nature calls. — Dante Zuñiga-West
Get
Hooked
Backwoods bass fi shing in Oregon
by Dante Zuñiga-West
y mom taught me how to fi sh. I was three
years old, standing outside the bathtub with
a tackle box and the tiny rod she bought me.
I learned how to make a rubber worm come
alive, how to tie knots and fl oat bobbers. We lived in the
city in Southern California, and until I grew old enough for
my grandfather to take me north on overnight fi shing trips,
that bathtub was it. There wasn’t much of an outdoors to
enjoy in Los Angeles. It was a while before I came face to
face with my fi rst big fi sh. Kids who grow up in Oregon
have it different. This here is bass country.
The North American largemouth bass is America’s
most popular freshwater fi sh. Bass fi shing has become
a multibillion-dollar industry in the United States.
Professional bass anglers can make $600,000 a year or
more. Like other pseudo-recreational activities Mom
fostered during those formative years, pursuits that walk
a fi ne line between sport and something else — paintball,
archery, long range marksmanship, etc. — generous
sponsors are a must for the pro.
Bass boats, bass rods, bass reels, bass lures — it can
get very complicated and expensive to be a bass master
and, honestly, I never wanted to be one. I just wanted to go
out into nature and catch big fi sh. I don’t have a drift boat,
either, and although I am enough of a yahoo to try my hand
at navigating (or sinking) one on the McKenzie in pursuit
of salmon, there is something starkly simplistic about pond
fi shing for big ol’ bucket-mouths: Hiking into the bush,
slinging your gear over your shoulder and making sure to
keep your rod away from tree branches as you search for
the right spot.
Bass are the malign thugs of the watery underworld,
aggressive nonnative predators who will eat anything they
can swallow — ducklings, frogs, snakes, lizards, even
other bass. Through experience and with age, these fi sh
grow increasingly adapted to their environment. This is
M
16 MAY 5, 2011 EUGENE WEEKLY
what makes going after them such an addictive thrill. It’s
like picking on really smart bullies, and the bigger they are
the harder they fi ght.
In Oregon, largemouth are found primarily in lakes and
ponds with temperatures of 68 to 78 degrees. They prefer
water that is no deeper than 20 feet, with high dissolved
oxygen levels and sunken vegetation, making it extra
hard for you to pull your lure through. If bass see you,
it’s game over. You have to be sneaky, and sometimes you
have to improvise. I caught several smallmouth bass on
the Umpqua River, home to some of the best smallmouth
fi shing in the world, by cutting open a bass my friend
caught and using the undigested crayfi sh in its belly as bait.
you moved to the Pacifi c
Northwest in continuation
of this aforementioned passion.
Maybe this passion became an obsession.
Your stubborn quest to achieve wild-
hearted outdoors undertakings could lead
you to largemouth bass fi shing. Oregon has
uninhabited backcountry full of bass. Your family
endearingly refers to you as the “Backwoods Blaxican,”
for reasons that involve your choice of lifestyle as well
as your mixed cultural heritage. Into the backwoods you
would go, rod and reel in tow. Most likely you would not
do so alone.
Being humble and eager to learn, you would enlist
a small squad of veteran backwoods fi shermen to help
with your efforts. You would boldly go where not many
have fi shed before, carefully circumnavigating barbed
wire fences and making sure your four-wheel drive
vehicles weren’t too easily found. You would bring only
the bare essentials of bass fi shing, a few spinners, crank
bait, some rubber worms, ice, extra line, beer, night
crawlers — things that make the upholstery of your Jeep
‘Bass are the malign thugs of the watery underworld,
aggressive non-native predators who will eat
anything they can swallow — ducklings, frogs,
snakes, lizards, even other bass.’
Largemouth are meaner and can eat bigger creatures. A
drunk, hairy bass fi sherman from Eastern Oregon recently
told me that you can have a great deal of luck by hooking a
live bullfrog through the mouth and tossing it out as bait. I
haven’t tried that yet, and I’d never gone after largemouth
in Oregon, until recently.
Let’s say you have a passion for outdoor adventure,
instilled by a fi ercely involved parental fi gure at a young
age. Let’s imagine that this passion led you to seek out
journeys and experiences the likes of which you used to
read about while pining over photographs in hundreds of
Field & Stream magazines you stockpiled as a kid. Maybe
smell terrible. You would bushwhack in search of a pond
monster. You would fi nd her in her spawning bed, very
pissed off at having been disturbed. The fi ght would be
preceded by a huge tail swirl visible from the surface.
It would end with you wading knee deep into the water
and grabbing this monster bass by the mouth. Lifting it,
you would smile and remember your mother. She would
be proud. At long last, boy meets (largemouth) bass,
backwoods meets Blaxican; those in other parts of the
nation aren’t so lucky. This bass country is ours, Oregon.
Go play outside.
ew
Special thanks to fishermen Reuben Pachito, Nick Ragonesi and Mike Fulmer
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