On a chilly day early in April the wind was blowing 20 to 25 miles an hour on Elephant Butte Lake in Southern New Mexico.  I had promised James Davis, who is an RV & Boat sales consultant at Rocky Mountain RV & Marine, that I would take him fishing in my Pro Team 175 Tracker Boat. 

Now after fishing Elephant Butte for over 20 years, I have learned that when the wind blows 25 miles per hour and the water temperature is only 50 degrees, you are limited as to where you can fish without getting very cold and wet. 

One of the advantages to fishing from a Pro Team Tracker Boat is their light weight, they are very easy to maneuver in a brisk wind with a 40 lb. thrust Minn Kota trolling motor.  So with the wind coming out of the south, we chose east-west coves to try our luck.  I knew that the white bass would be suspended in 20 to 30 feet of water in a pre-spawn mode at the mouth of the coves, so our possibilities of fishing for them was limited considering the spring weather conditions.

I decided that our best bet was to focus on pre-spawn largemouth bass on gradual gravel slopes where they would eventually be nesting.  I had chosen an area at Elephant Butte known as “the jungles” to fish because of the protection from the wind you get from the various rock outcroppings and narrow coves.  After about 4 hours of throwing everything we had in out tackle boxes at without even getting one bite, we were thinking that the boat would be stinking pretty skunky on the way back home.  Getting “skunked” (catch no fish) is pretty humbling.  But we were determined to keep trying considering we had driven 2 hours south from Albuquerque to get there, and had another 2 hour drive facing us on our return trip home.

As I was digging around in an old tackle box that I retrieved out of a storage compartment in my Tracker, I saw a 10-year-old green wiggle-wart crankbait that my father in law had given me several years ago, so I tied it on.  I really enjoy fishing with ultra-light tackle when I’m in an area without much submerged wood or brush, so not suspecting any giant fish to bite, my weapon of choice was a 5’ Berkley cherry wood spinning rod and a Shimano Sedona 750FB spinning reel loaded with brand new 4 lb. test Berkley monofilament line.  Yes I said 4 lb. test line, and thank God I had just filled the spool with new line!  

When the rod first bent over, I thought I was hung up on a rock.  But as the line began to scream off the reel, knowing that rocks were not capable of ripping line off a reel like that, I was convinced that I had hooked either a large channel cat or a pretty big stripper that Elephant Butte Lake is known for. 

When the big fish first boiled on top of the water, it was pretty far from the boat, so I still wasn’t sure what species of fish it was because due to the temperature of the water, it didn’t jump.  I was still thinking it was a big cat or a striper.  Fortunately it headed for deep water, which was ideal considering the ultra-light tackle I was fishing with.  So I pointed my Minn Kota powered Tracker in the same direction and followed the fish as it peeled line off my reel.  It felt like I was walking a Great Dane on a kite string, I had very little control, if any. 

When the fish finally came to the boat after several tense minutes and laid over on its side, I almost had a heart attack as James reached for the net.  One dip and out of the water she came much to our amazement.  She was the biggest Largemouth Bass that I had ever caught, so I need to know how much she weighed.  But I didn’t have my scale in the Tracker that day (now I never go fishing without it) so we gently placed her in the live well and headed to the marina to weigh her.  The marina was closed, but we saw another bass boat nearby, so I moved toward it and informed the guy that I had a giant fish in the live well and asked him if he had a digital scale.  He said sure, come on over and we’ll weigh her.  When I lifted the big girl out of my live well he almost fell out of his boat.  He said that bass big would surly win the “big bass” contest in the upcoming tournament and catching her would be worth $5000!

She weighed 11 lbs. 4 oz. and was completely full of eggs in her pre-spawn mode, so we took her back to exactly where I caught her, and after James took a couple of treasured photographs, I placed her back in the lake where she could do her thing making baby bass. 

A fish biologists that later saw her picture said she most likely had at least 5000 eggs in her.  So if I had killed that big bass, I would have killed over 5000 bass.  I NEVER kill big fish, I perform CPR on them.  Catch, Photograph & Release.  So when you fish the pre-spawn or during the spawn, remember to perform CPR on the big ones.  Put the big breeders back, because they are the future of any fishery. 

One final note, although we fished our butts off that day, that one giant bass was the only fish we caught during 7 hours of fishing.   But she gave a lifetime memory to the very persistent fishermen that are dedicated to practicing CPR. 

Thanx James, you have a future as a photographer, but the back of the boat where you were fishing stunk all the way home!