When all else fails, go on a Mac attack

I have continued to give myself fishing presents in the form of a "local bass tour."

One quick phone call to my friend assured us we had his boast to use on Loon Lake in Antioch. All that was needed was a fish or two to cooperate. Well, almost. The sky was one of those bluebird specials, clear and bright, with just a whisper of wind present.

This was phase two of our local-area bass exploration, and the reports I had received a day before signaled a promising day on the water.

West Loon had always been one of my favorites for lily pad, topwater bassing as well as a hot spot for jumbo bluegills. East Loon was our target this day because of a decent growth of coon tail and cabbage weeds. I brought the top-water lures and poppers but never used them.

The 14-foot boat was powered by our electric motor and it was perfect for our needs. On small lakes like West Loon I like to slowly work the weed pockets. In fact, because in past years when I used the bigger rigs with lots of horses on the back end, I was an eager member of that group that needed to race off to the other end of the lake in an effort to find big bass.

We found a "healthy" cabbage weedline right where we left it last year and allowed the slight breeze to slowly push us on a parallel course to the salad.

Roger tossed a small jig and twister tail in to a pocket and brought it back to the boat with enough green vitamins to invigorate a squad of anglers.

Dale stuck with a Texas rigged plastic worm, and for that moment, that setup appeared to be the right move. Dale reared back and we then watched while a scrappy 2-pound largemouth took to the air. The ice was broken. And yet at that point I wasn't certain if we had established a pattern as to what kind of presentation worked best.

Roger had yet to connect and decided to switch to different colored tail.

I grabbed a spinning rod adorned with a Little Action Mac, pre-rigged plastic worm. For almost twenty years, this has been my high-confidence, go-to bait. I know this sounds like an ad or commercial, but the Mac has rarely let me down. And here's a side note to that lure.

While fishing with legendary angler Ron Linder on one of his "secret" bass lakes in north central Minnesota, we were parked a few yards off a heavy cabbage weed bed. Lindner use the typical Minnesota bass rig, a small jig and plastic worm. I was using the Little Action Mac, and Roger was in the bow of the boat using a Mac as well. Long story short, I managed to outfish Ronald four to one in a very short period of time, and caught bigger bass to boot. He subsequently asked me to leave him all the Mac I had in my tackle box.

The same thing happened on West Loon this day. I suggested to Dale he use a "Mac", but he chose to stick with what gave him confidence (with fewer fish caught).

We didn't do as well as we had done on Bangs Lake the previous week, so after 2 1/2 hours I suggested we call it a day and get some lunch. Dale wanted to make a few more casts, so I acquiesced. On my second-to-last cast a jumbo fish attacked the worm and took off for the heavy weeds. I nursed the fish out of the cover because I was using 6-pound mono. The scale read slightly over 5 pounds.

I was one happy angler, and realized that gifts like a day on this lake will always be remembered in my book of memories.