McKay Reservoir Accident

The lovely and gracious Mrs. Groupe is fond of crappie fishing and possesses some celebrity after landing several in the 14-16 inch range. A couple of years ago we were slowly working the east bank of McKay Reservoir in early May. This impoundment is 1/2 mile wide and 3 ½ miles long and is situated six miles south of Pendleton. I was fishing the port side for bass and she worked the starboard side for crappies. She was nicely equipped with a pink ultralight rod and reel, four pound line and a red and white two inch mini-jig. She looked sharp in her peach colored hat, peach fishing shirt and peach gloves which protect her from having to touch a fish. I didn’t have the heart to tell her pink and peach clash. I’m pretty sharp on those matching details but I was thrilled she was my fishing partner and didn’t want to discourage her in any way. At 8:30 a.m. an unexpected hard hit elicited a shrill scream from my normally quiet dear wife. The unidentified monster ran 25 yards out toward the middle of the lake and jumped a couple of times. Hooking a bass was definitely not in her script for the morning. Fortunately we had the drag set loose so the line would easily feed out during his persistent runs. A large bass and an angler with four pound line is not a fair fight. But Mrs. Groupe did a superb job of playing the plus-sized bass, always keeping her rod tip up and letting him run when he desired. At 8:45 as the fish and angler wore down we planned our netting procedure. My first stab at netting him failed and the look my dear partner gave me would have blistered paint. I missed him three times resulting in additional short runs. I felt like a total doofus especially after she had done such a skillful job of playing the gigantic fish. At 8:55 I rectified my technique and lugged him into the boat. My lovely wife was extremely nervous for the duration…nearly as nervous as me as I was superintending the lengthy ordeal. She wanted me to take the rod but I encouraged her to carry on. I secretly hoped this might make a bass fisherman out of her but the transformation was not to be. She is a crappie angler so she wasn’t overly impressed with what she just pulled off. Go figure!! The limit on McKay is one Bass per person if over 15 inches in length. We already had that so we quickly photographed, measured the 21 incher and gently released him. We didn’t want to stress the fish any further by weighing him, but the large mouthed bass charts put him at 4 ½ - 5 pounds. McKay Reservoir is a credible large-mouth bass fishery. The state record of around 12 pounds was caught there about 1980 by Ron Campbell of Pendleton and held that spot for about ten years. email author at jgroupe@aol.com