The Record Newspapers - Hometown News For Orange County, Texas

Labor Day weekend turned soggy Sunday evening and it looks as though we have more rain to come.Higher off colored water will slow a pretty good bite down initially, but some significant tide changes should help improve the bite in Sabine Lake.

While most hard core bass fishermen wrote off the weekend to way too much recreational pressure on Rayburn and Toledo Bend, eighteen year old Zack Smith made it one to remember.

“I fished at night for the first time last month and caught my largest bass ever, a four pounder, on a purple lizard,” said Zach.“When my Uncle invited our family back up to T-Bend last weekend I couldn’t wait.”

Zach and his team mates lost their game Friday night, but he loaded up his Mom and sister and drove up to the lake immediately after the game.“We fished a couple of hours, but I was so tired that we only fished a little while that night.”

After sleeping in late the following morning, helping his Uncle repair the dock and filling up on barbequed ribs, he sorted through tackle the remainder of the evening preparing for a night of bass fishing.

“My Uncle has been night fishing for thirty years and he told me not to worry about all of the boats running across one of the spots we wanted to fish all day long.He was right!”

It took the better part of two hours for the first bass to find Zack’s ten inch Power worm crawling across the bottom in eighteen feet of water.“I thought I was hung up when my rod started bending over before I could even set the hook,” said the youngster.

What seemed an eternity later, Uncle Clyde slid the net under Zack’s new “largest” bass…a thick seven pounder.“We didn’t have a camera and I wanted to keep her, but I agreed to let her go,” said Zack.“My friends were never going to believe me.”

After putting two keepers in the live well, he found himself in a tug of war again.“That bass weighed 8.4 pounds and I didn’t even look at Uncle Clyde because I knew he was going to say we should put her back anyway.”

His Uncle forced him to quickly wolf down the rest of a leftover rib sandwich when he boated a bass in the five pound class.“I was so excited that I backlashed my next three casts and my Uncle told me, “Settle down…we’re not leaving any time soon.”

“I was still thinking about the two fish I put back when my lightest bite of the night turned into my hardest pull of the night.”Much to his surprise, this time Uncle Clyde would tell his nephew, “You can keep this one,” as soon as he netted her.

“You might never have another night trip like this one,” said Clyde.“Let’s go back, wake everyone up and take a picture.”“That’s when I knew she was really big”, said Zack.

It was what happened next that made this incredible night of fishing special for me as well.“The bass weighed 10.4 pounds and Aunt Carol put on a robe and walked down and took our picture,” said Zack.“She also said that Uncle Clyde had never caught a bass that big and she was going to pay to have it mounted.”

They put the big fish in the live well and were headed back up to the camp when they met Zack’s nine year old sister walking down to see the fish.“She is handicapped so she can’t fish, but she loves to sit and watch me catch bream in the pond at home.”

“When I picked the bass up we hugged and high-fived and I don’t know why, but I got all sad,” said Zack.“I told her to turn the fish loose, we named it Dottie after her and walked back to the camp to eat some pudding.”

“Aunt Carol started crying and said she was going to have a replica made and Uncle Clyde just shook his head and walked outside,” said the young bass fisherman quickly adding, “I can’t wait to go again.”

I’m betting there will always be a spot in Uncle Clyde’s boat for Zack!”