One Lonely Tree
It was just after dawn on a spring morning at Horseshoe Lake, Arkansas. I had just pulled up to a single cypress tree sitting all by itself on a large flat surrounded by lily pad stems. I had made a few casts with my spinnerbait and got it hung on a small limb under the water at the base of the tree. I quietly maneuvered my boat up to the tree so I could retrieve my spinnerbait, something I really dislike doing because it generally disturbs a good fishing spot. Little did I know that the tree would still be the best part of the fishing day. After retrieving my spinnerbait from the underwater limb I pushed myself away from the tree. I was only about five feet from the tree now and made my next cast along the other side. As I brought the spinnerbait along the base of the tree it bumped another small stick under the water and successfully passed this one. I was about to pull my bait out of the water when a four pound largemouth exploded on it. I only had about three feet of line out and quickly swung the bass into the boat. I was actually relieved and excited that my previous hang up had not kept me from catching this bass. I moved a little further out and around the lonely cypress tree. I made my next case with a spro frog around the base of the tree again. After a few slow twitches of the frog another largemouth bass absolutely devoured my frog lure. It was another four pound bass, and no it was not the same one, this one had a bad spot on the underside of its tail fin. I again moved a little further around the tree and made another cast with my spro frog. A few twitches later another bass exploded and turned out to be a three pounder. I stayed on the lake most of that day with a break from around nine o'clock to three o'clock when I went to see my oldest daughter's volleyball game. It was a great day on the lake and I ended up catching over a dozen bass in all that day. The best part of the day was still the first fifteen minutes when I caught three nice bass around one lonely tree. John Gossett