by: Jim Hert 

I used to think that we bass fishermen spent all of this time worried about the color of our fishing tackle because the bass were finicky and would only bite on certain colors.  But I recently learned that it must be because of our innate desire to create works of art and beauty.  I learned this startling fact from a fisheries biologist a while back.  Bass are colorblind! 

So there, I have explained what bass fishing has in common with art and now I will delve into the subject of ballet and bass fishing.  They are so much alike, they almost are the same thing!  We bass fisherman have to spend hours perfecting the moves and steps that involve much creative athleticism.  Some of the basic movements are beautiful in their simplicity, like the one-two-three motion of the "pitch" or the rhythmic swing of the "flip". 

To perfect the casting technique, called a pitch, a bass fisherman spends hours in their yard, driveway, or if they are lucky on their boat dock practicing this underhanded lure delivery technique.  Once perfected a good "pitcher" can put a jig & pig into a target the size of a coffee cup that is up to 40 or 50 feet away with virtually no splash.  Some can even do better than that! If you have ever stopped and watched a bass fisher who was very good at this, the motion is truly a thing of beauty.

The pitch involves a certain slight sway backwards, then a smooth step forward as you use your wrist to swing the tip of the rod forward toward your target.  You release the bait from your hand at the precisely timed moment and the bait will glide slowly just barely above the surface of the water to enter quietly at the precise spot that was being aimed at.  I think the thing that comes closest to this in the rest of sport is the parry movement in fencing.  I don't have to draw parallels between fencing and ballet, that has been done thousands of times already.

Another ballet like aspect of bass fishing is what takes place when a bass is caught.  When you have two men, one in the bow and one in the stern, and a fair amount of fishing tackle, gear, coolers, and a landing net in between them, and one of them yells fish on it can be something to behold.  One man has to get to the other end of the boat while grabbing the net on the way.  He also has to untangle the net or at least keep it from tangling in all of the other gear that he goes by on the way. 

The name of the game is motivation!  There is something about the potential of getting one of God's more beautiful creatures, the bass, in the boat that makes large, over weight, pot bellied, left footed, clumsy, out of shape, muddled in the mind, bass fishermen become like talented prima donnas!