Sad eyes on Mr. Bigmouth

The largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides) is in fact, not a bass. It is a member of the sunfish family. I am always amazed by their toughness, able to withstand repeated catch & release without compromising their ability to feed and get back to whatever fish do (due to their tough, large mouth). They put up a good fight, and respond well to a variety of lures, including "poppers" on a fly line. While I still have many other fish species to experience, I am convinced that the largemouth bass will remain on the top of the list as one of the most exciting fish to catch, especially when it comes to striking on lure. The strike of a largemouth, especially when it takes a lure/ popper off the surface of the water, is something that continues to shock me each time it happens. (it happened a lot for me this weekend) The amount of "splash and gulp" always seems larger than I expected.

The largemouth bass is also somewhat personal to me, as they are the first species of fish I have learned to catch consistently. They sort of "taught me fishing" in a sense. Their aggressive nature and abundance of them around here makes it a perfect "training fish" to catching sizable fish on fly rods (although I regularly go back to spinning rods when I need more frequent action). They are visually macho/ masculine in appearance (I see fish masculine & feminine ... as I do most things - living and not) and their behavior reaffirms that. However, there is something about the expression in their eyes that I still am trying to figure out. Their eyes are not masculine (nor feminine) ... they are blank, shallow, and very sad. Most would say the expression is the result of the fish being shocked, pulled out of water with a hook in their lip, but still, they have more expression than expected from a fish. Whatever the reason, that expression urges me to place the fish back in the water as soon as possible, and I often find myself rushing to unhook to release the fish. It's a complex feeling, trying and catching a fish but feeling rushed to release it. Fishing is simple at times, yet not so simple at other times ... "Fly fishing is not only an event, but also an abstraction. The fly rod and the way it behaves is a concept romantic, graceful, feminine in both it's creation and it's performance" (Donald J Goodman). I will have to think about this for a while. (why the eyes on largemouth bass looks sad).