Tour de Lacs - Day 2

I’ve been extra nostalgic lately. I don’t know if it’s a middle-age thing or not. Anything from the 80’s has been in steady rotation in my head and some Miami Vice popped up the other day. It got me thinking about how I used to watch Miami Vice as a kid on Friday night and then talk about the show at church in Sunday School. Patrick, Brian and I would break down the week’s episode talking about the current street value of cocaine, who had the best gun/boat/car and how fine Gina & Trudy looked as hookers. I’d go home and put some table sugar on a butter knife and pretend I was Tubbs checking to see how pure the Columbian powder was before consummating the deal. I mean, the show did point out some pitfalls of being a criminal or a vice cop, but damn did it look like a lot of fun. 

Another 80’s thing that has been on my mind is bass fishing shows. Hank, Bill, Roland, Orlando, Jimmy and Shaw were staples on my television. It was the same stuff, but it wasn’t. Monster hogs. Glitter boats. Texas rigs. Carolina rigs. Spinner baits. Buzz baits. Crank baits. Lots of baits. I ate it up like candy. I still think Shaw’s intro might be most underrated, but I’ll take Hank Parker’s as the best. Go YouTube all the intros and decide for yourself. The one thing that isn’t just nostalgic is the pursuit of trophy bass. Chasing after double digit bass never ever gets old. I love river bass, but Le Tour was dedicated to still water. And fishing ponds and lakes is very nostalgic for me. 

I didn’t come out of the womb with a Howells bamboo rod in my paw like Shad MacLean. I tackled fished as a kid. We fished our asses off, too. I happily bought Zoom plastics until I was about sixteen years old when a fella named Larry who was in the National Guard and worked part time at Mark’s Outdoor Sports in Birmingham showed me the way. He took me out front of the store in a small green space next to a row of shooting houses. He was a damn good instructor and I had the cast down that afternoon. I can’t recall if I already owned a Pflueger Medalist combo at that point, but I do remember buying my first real deal fly rod from him. It was a G Loomis GL3 4 weight. Thirty-three years later I still have it and will break it out occasionally on a small creek. And I wouldn’t take anything for it. 

I was texting the fellas one night and shared an Old Milwaukee Light beer commercial on YouTube. It was a bunch of dudes that looked like Dale Earnhardt fishing Bedico Creek in Louisiana – the “doesn’t get any better than this” ad campaign if you are old enough. It got the wheels spinning amongst the group. Sam and I brought up Pursell Farms. John mentioned Mountain View Lake and then Hank piped in with his connection to Ray Scott’s place. A Tour was born that night. The Tour de France usually has a couple time trials, a bunch of flat stages for the sprinters, some rolling stages for the possible breakaway artist, mountain stages that always dictate the race and a Queen stage that signifies the hardest, most challenging stage of them all. Also the Queen stage is usually the most scenic and iconic stage of the race. I would consider all three stages of our Tour de Lacs as Queen stages in terms of grandeur. These were magical waters.

After Stage 1 at Mountain View Lake we all went home to clean up for dinner. The Talladega 500 was that same weekend and rentals were scarce near our next destination. So we decided to all crash in Birmingham that night and meet for dinner. Most of us called it early and went home to get ready for tomorrow. Most of us. Day 2 found us heading south towards a place nestled on the banks of Lay Lake, part of the Coosa River system. Once a farm (well, still kind of is) turned agriculture experiment station turned outdoor Disney world called Pursell Farms. We were there to try to catch double digit bass. Sam and I got to fish this place ten years prior and it really messed us up (but in a good way).  He caught a 12 pounder on a popping bug and we caught several 3-5 pounders. The lasting impression wasn’t the fish, though, it was the people. Instant friendships were formed back then. The Pursell family added Orvis as partner and the property now boasts world class shooting and hunting pursuits along with golf and fishing. 

When we met up with Chuck Baker at Rick’s General Store for biscuits that morning, the ten years gone by felt like ten days. We were home. Chuck and the rest of the Pursell folks made us feel like family. Honest to God family. We all loaded up and headed toward one of the many lakes on the property. First stop was Mr. Jimmy’s pond, the site of Sam’s 12 pounder. Needless to say, we were excited. All three boats went their separate ways. It didn’t take my teammate Alan long before he had a couple trophy bass in the boat and Blue Team was on the leaderboard. He was fishing a baitfish pattern he created and only had the one he was fishing with (insert rolling eyes emoji). I think everyone caught bass that weighed at least two or three pounds, but Alan caught the whopper of the day. We weighed that fish on the Boga and it was pushing ten pounds. We were all fishing mostly seven and eight weights, but Alan fished his ten weight. And that nine pounder really put a bend on it. He would go on to lose a fish the next day we believe was in the 12-14 pound range. Leave the fives and sixes at home when trophy bass fishing.

We broke for lunch and had an incredible meal in the lodge. After beers and some great vittles we said goodbye to Mike. He was traveling abroad the next day and had to scoot. John decided to head down to where we were staying the next night. So, the rest of us hit another lake on the property and jumped into a couple jon boats. This lake surrounds the 17th hole on the golf course, a par three. Alan once again out-caught everyone that afternoon on his baitfish pattern. Sam and Hank started heckling a foursome when a couple balls found the water right next to their boat. They proceeded to heckle the next two foursomes, trying new material each round. They may have been onto something there. I noticed how much the golfers enjoyed it. I also noticed a couple looks at us as I guessed they internally pondered why they were golfing and not fishing like we were. We ended the fishing that day at the cart path bridge and a bottle of whiskey magically appeared out of nowhere. We pulled on it and laughed at Chuck’s wisecracks for a while. It really didn’t get better than that as they say. As we packed up the gear, I fully expected Alan to play Reverend MacLean when we gathered up on the bank.

<insert terrible photoshop pic of Alan as the Reverend MacLean>

“The Lord has blessed us all today….It’s just that he has been particularly good to me”

We hit the road and headed south for Ramer, Alabama and ultimately the capital city of Montgomery. Home of our next destination, Hank Williams’ grave and stage three of the Tour de Lacs.