There He Is

In Chapter One Cobb describes Dance as being, “one of those 10-percent guys.” In other words, one of the 10-percent of the angler population who catches 90-percent of the fish. Cobb also gives a very well thought out history of Dance and how he went from Memphis furniture salesman to the best tournament bass angler of the time. He describes Dance’s methods, thought process and his utmost confidence in his abilities. It’s a really good lead-in to the book and gives you more of an understanding of Bill Dance and what made him tick.

Chapter Two is all about Dance’s fishing philosophy; confidence, feel, endurance and patience – with the first two being most important. He then goes on to discuss that in order to be successful you have to have your head in the game. You have to be confident in your ability or you might as well pack it up. You can’t think of anything other than catching bass and you can’t doubt yourself. In his words, “You can’t fish a plastic worm feeling like a ‘loser.’”

To end the chapter, Dance tells a great story of the 1969 Eufaula event (he placed second fishing a plastic worm) where he and fellow angler Carl Dyess found a spot, coined Confidence Hole No. 1. This spot evidently was filled with five- to seven-pound brutes. Unfortunately, another boat had moved in just as they were preparing to leave. Dance and Dyess, not knowing if the other boat had seen them catch the fish, decided to move the only tell-tale of the spot – a large sunken log sticking out of the water – to another location that had similar features. As the story goes, they fished the new spot, caught a bunch of big fish, and then went back to Confidence Hole No. 1 and nothing.

Chapter Three is actually an adaptation of an article published in the 1973 Bassmaster Magazine Fishing Annual titled, “The Evolution of Plastic Worm Fishing,” by Myron Fischer. Credit is given to Nick and Cosma Crème as the inventors of the contemporary plastic worm made of PVC. They were also the first to impregnate their worms with scent.

Second and third on the list of plastic worm makers was Charles Burke and Dave DeLong. Interesting fact among these three different manufacturers is where they resided in the country. The Crème’s were from Ohio, Burke was from Michigan and DeLong was again from Ohio. It must have been those cold winters with nothing to do that spawned ideas of making fake worms.

Chapter Four is all about how Dance fishes the plastic worm. He talks about how he was first introduced to the bait in the mid-50s at Frazier’s Sports Shop in Memphis. Dance then describes when to set the hook, how to retrieve the plastic worm, how to set the hook and how to watch your line for strikes.

In Chapter Six Dance talks about lines and knots. He’s very adamant about taking good care of line and talks about how heat and UV light can weaken the line. Pretty amazing he’d picked up on this at such an early time in the history of mono.

Again in this chapter Dance talks about watching the line for strikes rather than relying solely on feel.

He then gets into knots. Of course he talks about the Improved Clinch and the Palomar knots but what intrigued me was his use of a knot I’d never heard of – the Burke Knot. The Burke Knot is essentially a version of the snell knot, where the line is wrapped around the shank of the hook and threaded through the eye. A few years back, a number of top touring pros were talking about using a snell knot for flipping. They used the snell because tied correctly would drive the hook point upwards, giving a better hookset.

Chapter Seven is all about worm rigs (primarily the Texas Rig) and how to use them. Interesting is even at this time the Texas Rig was still in a transition from being called the Slip-Sinker Rig – as it was originally called.

Dance talks about the inventor of the rig, Dave Hawk (a guide on Texas’ Lake Tawakoni) and the man who introduced him to the rig, Glen Andrews, “who still rates as one of the all-time great bassin’ men.”

Weight size, hooks, toothpicks as pegs, jig heads, South Carolina Rigs are all covered. He has special sections devoted to the jig-n-worm and Slider Fishing and even rigging the hook far back in the worm for short strikes.

Chapter Eight is all about color – and Bill Dance had his opinion of the best worm color back in the day. His famous quote, “Any color is all-right, just as long as it’s blue!,” has been heard by nearly every bass angler over 40.

Today we have more colors of plastics than 14 rainbows put together. Look at the list of colors offered back then, though. Blue, green, purple, black and red. Yep folks, those were the mainstays if not the only colors certain manufacturers made.

Chapter Ten is about adding sound-generating paraphernalia to your soft plastics. At the time a number of companies were beginning to make rattle chambers and even rattling sinkers for use with plastic worms. As in Chapter Nine, though, Dance doesn’t concede any opinion on whether they work or not, again saying, “if it gives you confidence, use it.”

Chapter Eleven is the longest and, in my opinion, the best chapter in the entire book. It’s dedicated on “where” Dance fishes the plastic worm – but I’m guessing this is where he’d fish any bait.

In Chapter Twelve Dance gives the limelight to John Powell – noted shallow-water worm expert of the time. You see, Dance spent most of his time fishing offshore structure. Thusly he probably felt it best to give this chapter to someone who had success in the shallows.

The opening of the chapter begins with Dance telling a story of Powell and how he’d make fun of structure fishermen.

“He claims that Pete Henson of Marietta, Georgia, who believes in settin’ and waitin’ for bass to come to him on a worm hole, stayed on a spot so long in the upper end of Lake Eufaula on the Alabama-Georgia line that river boat pilots begun to mistake him for a buoy marker. ‘Ol’ Pete finally moved one day, and caused a boat to run aground.”