Bass Nostalgia

[goosefish]

In the winter months I read. Just about all my fathers fish books have migrated over to my place. I'm like a little kid with these books. Right now I'm working through a book titled--A River Never Sleeps, by Roderick Haig-Brown. He wrote it in the forties. Pacific Northwest salmon, steelhead, and cutthroats stories. But man these stories and how he tells them gets me all thinking about surf fishing for bass right here in New England.
Here are a few sentences that I read last night:

I had worked about halfway down it when a fish took, out in mid-stream, right on the swing of the minnow. There was no question of striking; he was away before I had the rod point up, taking line with a speed that made the ratchet of the reel echo back from the timber.

I felt salmon excitement strong in me, and it was hard to keep on and fish out the rest of the pool before going back to him; but I knew he should be rested, and it was easier to keep fishing than to stand quietly on the bank and wait out the time.

I nooded. "He's still there--or another one just as big. It's too good a pool for them to give a little fish a chance."

The rest of the pool was worth a dozen more casts and a prayer.