NEAR SAWYER, Minn. _ Just minutes into this particular fishing excursion, Bret Baker started the verbal barbs with a backhanded comment about his son Joseph's first largemouth bass of the day.
"Cute one, Joseph," Bret said.
It didn't take long in the Bakers' 20-foot Lund Alaskan to realize that "cute" meant "small."
"Bigger than yours," Joseph, 15, fired back instantly, referring to the fact that his dad still hadn't landed a fish.
And so it went for a few hours on a recent summer's night as the three of us landed bass after bass from under docks, swimming rafts and moored pontoon boats. There was more verbal jousting for errant casts that ended up in trees or wedged in a dock. Even more if the fish caught was a bluegill and not a bass.
"Cute one, Dad," Joseph returned when Bret landed a small bass.
"At least mine is the right kind," Bret fired back after Joseph caught a bluegill.
The ribbing only stopped when one of us tied-into a decent bass. Then everyone stopped and watched or helped with the net.
There's little in fishing as fun as watching a nice bass tail-dance on the end of a line.
