Campfire

BURIED IN BASS HEAVEN Sometimes finding the biggest spring largemouths means scraping a little paint off the boat—or tidal sludge out of your underwear

- Pete Robbins

OVER THE PAST 20 YEARS I’ve owned six fiberglass bass boats. With each purchase,

I’ve investigated whether the new model will run faster, handle waves better, and store more tackle, but I’ve never looked into perhaps the most important question of all—how shallow will it float?

As a result of my failure to ask that question, I’ve spent lots of time knee deep in the mud pulling my meticulously waxed boat into and out of places that would’ve been better accessed by float tube. But taking 1,700 pounds of fiberglass where no one else has provides an intense high, the feeling that I am alone with the fish, where no one else is nutty enough to go.

I’ve taken that search for solitude to bass fisheries all over the country, including my home waters of the Potomac River, which gets pounded by anglers each spring. In April and May, the bass pile into shallow bays to spawn, and to be around them, you often have to play bumper boats in the community holes. It can be productive, but for those of us who live crowded lives on commuter trains and in cubicle farms, it doesn’t epitomize what weekend outings are about. Thus, I’ve spent hundreds of hours when I could’ve been fishing just searching for hidden spots, like the back of a creek that every one else assumes is blockaded by laydown logs. Most often, it’s an exercise in frustration, but that one time in 10 when a little trickle opens up into an unpressured pond, it’s magic.

LOWDOWN AND DIRTY