My entire extended family hunt and fish. I got my first buck at age thirteen. My father bought me a Winchester Model 70 Classic Featherweight 30-06 for my birthday that year and taught me how to shoot and hunt. My Uncle Danny taught me how to fish, and a few other important things in life.
Uncle Danny, the baby of my father's seven siblings, is much younger than Daddy and my other aunts and uncles. Kind of an unexpected surprise for my grandparents so they say. Danny is tall and muscular, blue eyes and longish blonde hair. The photos on the walls of the high school feature him prominently as quite the basketball star. Unfortunately Danny lost a leg just above the knee in a motorcycle accident two weeks before the start of his freshman year of college, which got postponed and never did happen.
After the accident, Danny just mostly goofed off, drinking, hunting and fishing mostly. He lived off a substantial insurance settlement he received from the accident so all my relatives said. He always had girlfriends, but apparently never anything serious.
Danny took me his favorite fishing spot for largemouth bass. He shared that particular secluded spot with no one else.
“This is my honey hole.” Uncle Danny said when he cut the engine on the boat. Never have I failed to catch me a couple big ones here. You’ll see, Honey.” He called me Honey just like my father did.
The day turned out to be sunny, hot and very windy. We arrived at Uncle Danny’s honey hole just as the clock on my wrist struck noon.
“Honey,” Danny continued, “fishing in the middle of the afternoon on a hot, sunny, windy day is simply the best no matter what the so-called experts say. I’ll be damned if I’m getting up at 5:00 AM anyway. Besides, we are less likely to be spotted at this time of day. Don’t want anyone sharing my honey hole, you know.”
“Why is the fishing better on a day like this, Uncle Danny?”
“The wind and the waves break up the water surface and stir up the life and sediment in the water. The baitfish are more active because the wind moves around their food supply and thus the bass are more active. It’s deep in this spot. The fish move from shallow to deeper water when the surface temperature is hot, like in the middle of the afternoon on a day like this. I wouldn’t be fishing here at night or early in the morning. I’d be much closer to shore.”
“Well, let’s fish!” I squealed excitedly.
“OK, cast your line into the wind, Honey. The bass will always face into the wind or current. You want the lure in their face and not behind them.”
An hour later we had absolutely no bites and I got bored. I set down my rod and so did Danny. He reached into the cooler and pulled out one beer, for himself.
“Hey, where’s mine?” I whined.
“Aren’t you just a little young to be drinking?”
“Say what? Daddy lets me take a few sips of his when Mom isn’t watching. I sneak beers when they’re not home. Daddy can’t remember how many he drank and he’s always inviting friends over to watch football on his NFL Sunday Ticket, or whatever sport is in season. He must buy about a case a day.”
“Well, alright, Honey, I guess you can have one. I didn’t bring any Pepsi or anything, and it is really getting hot.” With that, he chugged down the beer in about three long gulps, reached in the cooler and grabbed two more, one for him and one for me.
After I finished the beer, I felt a little tired.
“Hey Uncle Danny, I think I might as well work on my tan since the fish aren’t biting.”
“Whatever,” he replied nonchalantly. “But don’t think you’re eating any fish you didn’t catch yourself.”
“Whatever yourself, Uncle Danny. I have you wrapped around my little finger and you’ll do anything I ask. So hurry up and catch some bass, will ya, huh? I’m getting a little hungry; just had a muffin for breakfast.”
Danny went back to fishing. I removed the white tee-shirt and jean cut-offs I had been wearing, displaying my big sister’s red and white striped halter bikini I had borrowed.
“Nice suit,” he commented, looking at me just a little differently than he had before.
“Uncle Danny, you did say red and white are the colors that best attract the fish did you not? Else why the red and white lures.”
