the "Dollar Fish"
It was O-dark-30 when I pulled up in front of
Dan Manning' s house in Tampa. When I knocked on the front door
he called for me to come in . He was in the kitchen finishing his
breakfast. His living room walls were covered with "my
family" as he called them. Several 8pt bucks, at least one
Pronghorn and two fairly large bass, along with an assortment of other
decorations, including a few pictures.  Don's
a retired Tampa firefighter. He spends a lot of his time
hunting and fishing, both fresh and salt water. He's a '"cracker"
in the good meaning of that word. He was born and raised in
Florida. He talks a kind of old south without the accent. The
noon meal is "dinner" and the evening meal is "supper." (That's
the way I was raised, too.) But don't let his speech fool
you. He's been in 48 of the 50 states, hunted and fished in quite
a few of them and visited South America and Alaska more than
once. Each month, at our outings, we give a prize for the largest
fish caught in one of several categories. as often as not, Don
wins. He and I have been planning a trip for several years now. He'd say, "give me a call." and I'd say, "I will." but somehow it just never happened. Well, now that I'm retired, we made it happen. Originally, we'd planned on Alligator Lake, but he suggested that we visit a lake he fished, north of Tampa. The sun was just starting to lite the eastern sky when he backed the boat into the water. I'd opened and closed the gate to the pasture and snapped the ceremonial picture of the launching of the boat. I knew the rules. "Now if you're fishin' in my boat," he said, "we put a dollar on the first fish caught. It can be any kind of fish. I catch the first fish, you pay me a dollar. You catch the first fish, I'll pay you the dollar. It has to be in the boat -- none of this fish you lose or touching the leader. "Some fellows want to give me the dollar up front, but I don't do that." He assured me that we'd both be rigged and ready before we started the bet. I had a sneaking feeling that he knew just where to fish, to collect that dollar. I wondered if he didn't split the profits with the fish... It wasn't long before we had the "fist fish" out of the way and could relax and just fish. Don was using a top water fly that had been taught him by Jim Swan, of Swan's fly shop in Dade City. The fly's a little foam popper that's easy to tie. Don worked it across the water through the grass line and cast again. He was worried because he'd promised two bass to the woman who owned the farm where we'd accessed the lake. "Her husband don't fish -- don't like fish! I ask him a lot of times if he wanted me to save him some bass and he always said, 'No.' Then I ask her the last time I was out here and she said she'd like a couple." He wasn't catching any bass. In fact, right then, he wasn't catching anything. He'd missed maybe five or six good fish. I'd caught a few bream, but no bass. He and his brother had both caught 57 fish, almost all big bass, out of this lake in the summer. "I've got pictures in the truck. I'll show you when we get back." But today the bass had lockjaw. Don's not a purest. After about 45 minutes of fly fishing without a bass, he changed to a spinner bait. After about 20 minutes with only one hit, he went to his "go to," a plastic worm. Nothing. Eventually he went back to the fly rod. We'd fished maybe one third of the lake and Don was getting desperate. He needed a bass. He was starting to worry. Then... success!
He was proud of the fact that he'd arranged the
outing to the everglades, and everyone who fished had caught a lot of
fish.
He'd occasionally point out a house that would probably go for $2,000,000. "The ol' man came out and told me to quit fishin' for 'HIS' fish. I just ignored him.'' Or, "He came out and told me this was his end of the lake, to go fish the other end of the lake." It's the Florida version of what's happening in other parts of the US. This idea of private ownership of water seems to be growing in America. People believe that because they fork over a lot of money for a big house on a lake they control the water and the fish in the lake. A friend of mine often points out that he grew up thinking people were either below or above him. It wasn't until he just started thinking of people as people that he made progress in life. (I'd like to think that I think of people as people) I wonder if any of those land owners would have come out and challenged Don, if he'd had a 30ft boat with twin outboards and radar. Then he got his second fish...  This one went into the live well, "just in
case." But you can see by the look on his face, he
wasn't really happy about the size. We fished on. Then
there was this...
  Then
It was my turn to get into the act. I'd been catching bream off
and on, but not as large as I'd like. Eventually I got my first
bass. It went 12 inches. Not big for this lake. I was fishing my 7 1/2 ft 5 wt. I'd been changing flys, from a foam spider to a bead head wollybooger to a LA hopper, to a deer hair diver, then a bead head wollybooger behind a spinner, and finally another deer hair diver. The deer hair diver did the trick. Don had tried an old bamboo rod that had been in his family for several years. It cast Okay for a 3p 8 1/2ft rod. It had two tips. I 'd test cast it a few days before. I'd suggested a WF5. On about the third cast, don got hung up on some grass. He gave the rod a little jerk and the tip broke. Why it was weak is anyone's guess. Maybe from years of sitting next to a hot water heater in Florida. Maybe it got put away wet. Who knows. Don was hoping to catch his first "fish on Bamboo" that day. It will have to wait. I kept trying to let him use mine, but he was afraid he might break it. "That's why I build my own." I told him, "If it breaks I don't seen $1000 fly out the window." We fished past the weed bed. I was sure there had to be a bass under a dock that we passed so I put an extra cast or two around it. I got a good hit and struck! The battle was on. It felt larger than the bream I'd been catching, more like a bass. But it wasn't tail walking. It was staying deep. Now I've seen bass that didn't jump, but not often.
Oh yes. About the first fish. Don missed two strikes before I had my first bite.  But I got it in the boat! This is the Dollar fish. Don says he wants revenge...
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