Fishing secret won't be revealed with money

I discovered a fishing paradise last week, right in Portage County.
But you couldn’t pay me enough money to reveal its location.
This paradise is full of bass and large panfish, all of which are so hungry nearly every cast lands a fish.
My 5-year-old son, Braden, using his SpongeBob SquarePants rod and reel, caught a 22-inch, three-pound bass, as well as four or five other keepers and a bunch of panfish.
I wasn’t as successful because he kept me busy with his catches, but I still pulled in a few nice bass. I also lost two really big lunkers that thrilled Braden when they jumped out of the water.
All of this took place during just one hour of fishing in my secret fishing paradise location.
I don’t really have a reason to keep this location a secret, as I don’t keep them because my wife and I think they taste too fishy. A few photos are all we take back with us. Revealing this location, though, would violate a tradition I’ve grown up to all my life: never tell others where good fishing holes are located.
It’s OK to tell someone where decent fishing holes are, but giving away a good hole will soon lead to the end of it. It will be fished out, overcrowded and overused, and then will become another worthless spot in the lake, tradition says, if said paradise is revealed.
Until last week, I’ve never known such a good fishing spot. Heck, I’ve barely known decent spots. Now I feel I’m amongst the privileged fishing elite – move over Babe Winkelman – and rising to these ranks has given me to the power to look down at other fishers, much like many of them have done to me in the past while refusing to reveal their paradises.
Go ahead and ask. I’ll happily brag about how good the location is and that the action was so hot I had to leave after an hour because it wore me out. I’ll also rub it in your face that my 5-year-old, who I’ll reiterate was using a SpongeBob pole, probably outfished you in that hour than you in your best full day of fishing ever.
In fact, by his third or fourth bass he was so used to catching monster fish it was beginning to bore him. Yes, his attention span may be short, but it’s still long enough to recognize fishing bliss. Like a really rich chocolate, too much of a good thing can sometimes be tiring.
I once caught a similar-sized bass on Spring Lake in the town of Marion in Waushara County. It was the only fish I caught that day, making the location far from a fishing paradise. I placed the photo of me with the fish in the shopper publication of the newspaper I worked for at the time, at the urging of co-workers and because we needed filler copy for the publication, which specializes in featuring the county’s recreational activities through photos and stories.
Foolishly, I forgot about tradition and revealed where I caught the fish.
Years later, after meeting my wife’s grandfather who lived on the lake, I told him about my catch and that I put a photo of it in the paper.
He was not pleased, scolding me for revealing a location that probably sent the entire fishing public to the lake.
Several years later, his neighbor also scolded me for the same reason upon hearing my story.
Nowadays, I jokingly tell my father-in-law after he catches a large fish I’m going to send his photo to the newspaper there for publication. He knows I won’t, as I’ve mastered the art of not giving away such fishing secrets.
That doesn’t mean I’m not going to let everyone know that I have a great secret. What good is such knowledge if you can’t tease others with it?