Chapter 11 - No Screens, No Excuses
Ryan did not sleep much after Victor’s warning.
At 4:40 the next morning, he found Eli already sitting on the dock with two rods and a thermos.
“You’re supposed to be resting.”
“You’re supposed to stop repeating yourself.”
Ryan sat beside him.
“Victor threatened me.”
“He threatened what you represent.”
“Which is?”
“Something I can still lose.”
Ryan stared at the black water.
“Great. Comforting.”
Eli handed him coffee.
They were quiet for a while.
Then Eli said, “Turn the boat electronics off today.”
Ryan looked at him. “Why?”
“Because if Victor thinks I depend on you, I want to know whether he’s right.”
They launched at Blackwater Lake without cameras. The reservoir was deep, clear, and notoriously moody. Long points dropped into thirty feet. Standing timber filled old creek channels. Grass flats spread through the northern arm. On calm days, suspended bass could roam open water and frustrate anglers who tried to fish only obvious cover.
Ryan switched off every display except the basic engine gauges.
“No mapping?”
“No.”
“No depth?”
“No.”
“Old man, this is stupid.”
“Good. Stupid teaches fast.”
Eli idled along the shoreline and watched terrain above water: the angle of hills, exposed rock, drainage cuts, old fence lines disappearing into the lake.
“Contour continues underwater,” he said. “Steep bank usually means steep break. Creek enters there, so channel swings nearby. That clay point probably extends farther than it looks.”
Ryan nodded reluctantly.
Eli stopped the boat on the leeward side of a point.
“What would you throw?”
“Jerkbait.”
“Why?”
“Clear water, suspended fish possible, light wind, shad present.”
“Good. What else?”
“Deep-diving crankbait if they’re relating to the break.”
“Good.”
“Football jig on bottom.”
“Good.”
Ryan frowned. “You planning to tell me I’m wrong at some point?”
“Eventually.”
They started with jerkbaits.
Ryan worked his with sharp downward snaps and three-second pauses.
Eli watched.
“Longer.”
“How long?”
“Until it feels uncomfortable.”
Ryan waited seven seconds.
“More uncomfortable.”
“Twelve?”
“Now you’re learning.”
On the next pause, Ryan’s line tightened.
He leaned into a three-pound spotted bass.
“Okay,” Ryan said, laughing. “I hate that you’re right.”
“Get used to disappointment.”
By midmorning, sunlight intensified and the jerkbait bite faded.
Eli moved shallow to isolated wood.
Ryan tied on a jig.
Eli chose a compact Texas rig with a light tungsten weight pegged close to the plastic.
“Why not heavy?” Ryan asked.
“Quiet entry. Clear water. Fish are tight to shade, not buried in jungle.”
He pitched beyond a branch, let the bait fall vertically beside it, then shook it once.
A bass ate.
“Your pitch barely splashed,” Ryan said.
“That’s the point.”
They spent the afternoon comparing power and finesse approaches. Ryan burned a spinnerbait across windblown pockets while Eli dragged a Carolina rig over deeper gravel. The Carolina rig—weight ahead of a swivel, leader behind it, soft plastic trailing—let them cover bottom while keeping the bait separated from the sinker.
At one rocky saddle, Eli used what he called the Stair-Step Drag.
“That another anime move?” Ryan asked.
“Say that again and you’re swimming.”
The method was simple: instead of dragging continuously, Eli pulled the Carolina rig in measured increments, pausing after each change in bottom composition. Hard gravel transmitted a sharp vibration. Mud felt dull. Shell beds felt crisp and irregular.
“Bass don’t live on maps,” Eli said. “They live on differences.”
Ryan repeated the phrase quietly.
Near sunset, the wind stopped completely.
The lake became glass.
Ryan hated slick-calm conditions because fish often became difficult to approach shallow.
Eli smiled.
“What?”
“Time for the Mirror Walk.”
Ryan groaned. “Here we go.”
Eli tied on a small topwater walking bait.
“In calm water, noise travels. Big aggressive bait can educate fish fast. So you cast farther, work slower, and make the lure look injured instead of panicked.”
He made a long cast past a shade pocket and barely twitched the lure, allowing it to glide side to side with long pauses.
A bass rose beneath it but did not strike.
Ryan whispered, “Follower.”
Eli stopped the bait completely.
Five seconds.
Ten.
The bass exploded on it.
Ryan laughed so hard he nearly dropped his rod.
“You waited forever.”
“Fish was already interested. Moving it more would only give it reasons to say no.”
They returned to the ramp after dark.
A note had been tucked beneath Ryan’s windshield wiper.
NO SCREENS WON’T SAVE YOU.
Ryan looked around the empty parking lot.
Eli took the note, folded it once, and put it in his pocket.
“You still think the Masters is worth it?” Ryan asked.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Victor wants me afraid enough to leave.”
“That’s not a fishing reason.”
“No.” Eli opened the truck door. “It’s a father reason.”
On the drive home, Tyler called.
“I found something in the digitized ledgers.”
Ryan put him on speaker.
“What?”
“A payment three days before Mason’s crash. Twenty-five thousand dollars to a company called Holloway Recovery.”
Eli went still.
Ryan asked, “What does that mean?”
Tyler said, “Holloway wasn’t a recovery company. It was a private security outfit. Guess who owned forty percent?”
Nobody needed the answer.
Victor Kane.
Before loading the boat, Eli retied every leader. Ryan noticed he chose fluorocarbon for the jerkbait and bottom-contact setups, braid-to-fluorocarbon for finesse spinning gear, and straight braid for the frog rod.
“Line is part of the lure,” Eli said. “Diameter changes fall rate. Stretch changes hooksets. Visibility can matter in clear water. Abrasion resistance matters around rock. People buy a hundred-dollar bait and then connect it with the wrong line because the spool was already there.”
Ryan held up a finesse rod. “Ten-pound braid to eight-pound fluoro?”
“For most of what we’re doing. Thin braid casts well and gives sensitivity. Leader gives abrasion resistance and lower visibility. But knots become another failure point, so tie them right.”
“FG knot?”
“If you can tie it under pressure.”
“Double uni?”
“If you can’t.”
Ryan grinned. “You’re less romantic when talking line.”
May you like
“Because fish don’t care about romance either.”
They checked drag pressure instead of locking reels down. Eli insisted a properly set drag was a mechanical partner, especially with light line. “You don’t prove strength by breaking six-pound test,” he said. “You prove judgment by landing the fish.”
