A little thumb pushed down on the button of a youth rod-and-reel combo, the rod whipped back and forth, and a rubber frog with a weedless hook in it sailed across the sky and landed on the water. It came down a long ways from the original aiming point, but close enough for this operation, because as long as your hook is in the water there’s a chance.

It was getting close to sunset. The water was a blend of gun barrel blue and shades of gray across a bay also dotted with dark green lily pads. The fake frog was splashing across the surface and then a bass changed everything when it tried to eat the frog.
On the cover of outdoor magazines of that time (early 1960s) it would have been easy to find a painting of this very picture, water everywhere out at the end of the line, a big bass thrashing, anglers in an old boat, oars in the water. The frog was mine, and the weight of the frantic bass in my hands, cranking with every bit of power on that old hinge-reel combo from South Bend. The fish was using my line to cut underwater weeds, and I was making every mistake in the book. My dad was telling me not to horse him. I had no idea what that meant, instructions from a lesson not yet learned, and then the fish jumped and got off.
After it was over, I sat there and cried, ankles bent on the curved aluminum floor of the old boat, high-top tennis shoes rocking on rivets, tears soaking into an overstuffed orange life jacket that you remember if you grew up in those days. The life jacket was a real pain in the butt, like an airbag that went off around your neck, but you were expected to keep it on, no matter how tightly your dad cinched it up, and make a cast into that little opening he was pointing to with one of the oars.
Dad tried to get me to keep fishing, but there was nothing to fish for.