“Brown Water Bail!” (You probably had to be there)

Prologue: Every once in a while an incident occurs that ends up being one of those “inside jokes” that no one else will understand and they look at you in confusion every time it comes up. This pointless and non-fish bragging post is a story of one of those moments. I will do my best to recount this moment for the small handful of regular viewers. But without having been there the brown water bail concept may fall a bit short.

Brown Water Bail

One day Don and I rolled out to one of our prime time lakes trying to get a jump on the early season. The water was cold and stained from heavy rains and spring run off. Stained water is my least favorite and it put me in panic mode right off the bat. After 30 minutes of no bites I was trying to convince Don that we needed to get off the “hot spot” and haul everything to another venue.

“Dude…we need to start thinking about a Plan B.”

“Huh?” Don says with startled amazement. “Pull off of here? Go where?”

I could see that this would be no easy sell. Looking at the cold stained water my worry and lament grew.

“The water is really brown. If I don’t start seeing fish soon…we need to bail.”

Not more than 30-minutes later the sun peeked out of the clouds and the extra light kicked the action into high gear. We were landing fish right and left with some good-sized ones as well. Don looked at me with that expression as if my mental faculties were now in question.

“I can’t believe you wanted to pull off this water.”

“Yea, man. I went kinda Chicken Little for a second. The brown water and slow morning action…not a big fan of stained water.”

Don chuckles and then goes into a shriek-like turkey call, “Brown Water Bail! Brown Water Bail!”

I nearly hit the deck of my pontoon boat in laughter. Couldn’t even fish for the next 5-minutes. Now every time one of us sees the other waning in fear and self-doubt a call is given in the sprit of Chicken Little that day on stained water.

“Brown Water Bail! Brown Water Bail!”

Guess you had to be there.

Good luck and good fishing.