‘Big Bass Bob’ Bettered By Beautiful Babe

Memories of my best friend and brother Bob Mann who passed away April 01, 1999.

Bob didn’t like to lose, but then again neither do I.

My older brother Bob doesn’t like to be beat by women, well by anyone but it really bums him out when it’s a woman that kicks his butt at anything. Especially fishing, so I had a great time watching Debbie kick his butt fishing. She kicked mine too but I was more interested in Bob’s reaction.

Debbie is great fun so we decided to ask her if she would like to come on a fishing vacation to Georgian Bay, Ontario for some bass. Well Deb is the kind of girl that is called a Tom-Boy and she didn’t shy away from most things other girls would cringe at.

Note: Bob was raised in this area. We were raised in foster homes. I was raised on a farm and didn’t get much fishing at all, while Bob was raised in Toronto and spent all his summers at a cottage on Georgian Bay fishing.

So we arrived, rented a little boat for the week and headed out on to Bay with our camping and fishing gear.

The first day I let myself get sun burned pretty bad and spent the next couple of days completely covered up avoiding any sun on my back at all. It was painful but not enough to make me stop fishing.

Bob took us to all the spots he fished for smallmouth bass when he was growing up and there were bass there, it just wasn’t Bob that was catching them. I caught a few small one’s but Debbie was the one that was getting all the bigger smallies. Bob was getting quite bothered by this, which of course made me laugh even more.

To make things even worse for Bob the only pike caught was by Deb. I think my smerks and giggles was getting under his skin, anyways by the end of the week he had had enough and in a fit he threw all his fishing gear and his rod in the water.

He regretted it as soon as he did it but it was done and Debbie and I, in shock, both burst out laughing. After a few minutes Bob calmed down, at least on the outside and we called our week long fishing vacation over.

Bob passed away 11 years ago today and unfortunately it was no April fools joke. Bob will for ever be in my memories, we had a lot of great times together once we were out of the Children’s Aid and rejoined each other as brothers.

Bob told me that he would give up every thing he had and live in a box on Yonge Street Toronto as long as he could keep his golf membership. Well it was on his favorite golf course April 1st where he had a massive heart attack and died on the 7th hole. Just the way he would want it.

Wish Bob had stuck around a few years longer so that he could have learned how much fun fly fishing in New Brunswick is as it’s where our roots are, we just never got to experience growing up. I now have a son that is about the same age we were on this memorable fishing trip and he is now interested in fishing. What a blessing.

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Tagged with: fishing • Ontario • smallmouth bass

Filed under: bass fishing

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