Recently, while fishing a section of the San Marcos River by kayaks with fishing pal Mike Mosel, I hooked a medium-sized redbreast sunfish on my lite fly rod.

As I was bringing the fish to the boat a big smallmouth bass appeared behind the little sunfish. The fish on the hook sensed the big predator behind him about the same time that I saw the bass. The perch went ballistic. He took off with great speed. The bass was in hot pursuit.

Knowing that he was about to be dinner, the sunfish burst to the surface and began to zigzag. It didn't help. The water churned as the bass moved closer for the kill. Then the sunfish turned and passed very near the gunnel of the kayak. The smallmouth never saw the kayak. His focus was totally on his prey. With a final huge swirl the bass engulfed my perch.

Having experienced this situation in the past years I knew what to do. Instead of jerking the rod attempting to hook the bass, I dropped the rod tip and fed slack line to the moving bass. He went to the bottom of the river and stopped moving. I simply waited, hoping he would swallow the sunfish. I knew the sunfish was pretty large, even for a four pound bass to swallow. But maybe…

After what seemed like an eternity I reeled down, jerked the rod as hard as possible and began to bring the bass up from the bottom. Mike was watching me as the little rod bent double. Just before the smallmouth reached the surface the sunfish popped out of his mouth still hooked on the popper.

I should have waited longer, but I got impatient. The only chance of hooking the bass with such a small lure would be for the predator to totally swallow the little fish.

As I released the little sunfish, still alive but half scaled by bass teeth, I said, “You are one lucky little son of a gun.”

You never forget those kinds of experiences. They’re more vivid in the memory bank over those great catches.

Several years ago, Bobby Whiteside and I were fishing on the Blanco River about a mile from the confluence with the San Marcos River. My wife Beth was running the TV camera for our outdoor show.

I hooked a big sunfish on the fly rod and while the golden-colored fish was struggling, a huge largemouth bass ate him. I watched the whole scene in the clear water. I’m sure the bass was at least an eight pounder.

I got excited and pulled the sunfish out of his mouth instead of waiting out the process of ingestion and digestion. When the sunfish came out of the predators mouth, it popped to the surface and the bass was on him again like white on rice. With the sunfish in his mouth, the bass powered down and I again tried to set the hook. Same results. The sunfish came out of my trophy’s mouth. Worse yet, Beth was so fascinated by the wild scene that she forgot to turn on the camera.

These bigfish eating hooked little fish reminds me of a Gulf of Mexico fishing story that I was right in the middle of about 40 years ago.

San Marcos resident Ronnie Austin and I were deep-sea fishing for king mackerel in his 18-foot deep-v aluminum boat. We had landed several kingfish when I hooked a stronger, tough-fighting fish. It turned out to be about a 25-pound jack crevalle. A big wide-sided jack is a furious, tenacious fighter.

I had battled the jack for over 30 minutes and was winning the fight. The fish was tiring and we could see him in the clear water as he was coming nearer and nearer to the surface.

Suddenly, line began to peel off the reel. It sizzled as the 40-pound, mono-filament line cut through the salty waters. Something had eaten my jack in one bite. It had to be big.

“A shark has taken you fish. He’s got to be huge, maybe as long as this boat,” said Austin.

I could never turn the fish. For the next hours he towed us far out into the Gulf. While hanging on to my shark Ronnie kept the outboard idling. The bubbles from the idling engine attracted a big ling to the boat. Ling are often curious fish and he swam right up behind the transom.

“There's a big ling behind the boat,” shouted Austin. “Do you think we should fight two fish at the same time?”

“Why not?” I answered.

Ronnie tossed the ling a big ribbonfish bait and he jumped on it like a junkyard dog. We now had a several hundred pound shark towing the boat toward Cuba and a 40-pound ling fighting out the stern of the boat. It was a real circus. Ronnie finally landed the ling while I stayed with the shark.

Now after a 30-minute fight with the jack and 1 1/2 hours on the shark I was really tired.

“I don’t think we will ever turn him,” Austin said. “There’s a limit to what you can turn on 40-pound line”.

Finally, the line parted. The sand paper-like hide of the shark rubbing against the line finally weakened it until it broke.

I wish we could have at least seen the shark. But, on second thought, maybe not.



Jim Darnell is an ordained minister and host/producer of the syndicated outdoors show God’s Great Outdoors. His column appears evert Thursday in the San Marcos Daily Record.