by Bob Johansen, December 31, 2006

Her name was Samantha. She was one of the biggest smallmouth bass in all of Lake Sammamish. Nearly 12 years old, her normally powerful, streamlined body now bulged with nearly a pound of roe. Spawning season was near.

As she finned the shallows, looking for a mate she started day dreaming about that cool
spring day when she had emerged from an egg so long ago.

She had been spawned in late spring, an egg stuck together with a few thousand brothers and sisters. A short time later, after fertilization by her father, she drifted into a shelter of clean pebbles in the clear water about six feet deep. The rocks and pebbles had been fanned clean of sediment as her father prepared the nest with sweeping motions of his tail.

The water was cool, about 52 degrees Fahrenheit and it had taken about 10 days for her to emerge from the egg. At birth, she was only about one/fifth of an inch long. While nourishing herself on yolk, she rested a few days in the safety of a rocky crevice in the nest.

After the yolk of her egg was consumed, the little smallmouth bass had to find her own food which was at first primarily zooplankton. She continued to school with the rest of her family as they swam around without any apparent direction or purpose. As the length of the baby bass increased to about a half inch they ranged farther and farther from their hatching nest. Their diet now widened to include small insects.

Throughout the first month of life, their ever-vigilant father swam around tirelessly, guarding his brood from predators. He was quite effective against most fish but sometimes schools of bluegills or sunfish proved to be too much for him. He would chase one fish away only to have others dart in and grab a helpless little fry.

After about a month, the young smallmouth bass decided to strike out on their own. Their father, who had been so protective of his family, now looked at his own brood as food. Large bass are not only efficient predators but cannibals as well.

Samantha, however, was lucky and did not become a tasty snack for her hungry father. Instead, she found food and shelter near the shoreline of her huge urban lake. Lake Sammamish covers 4897
surface acres and reaches depths of nearly 100 feet and provides lots of aquatic vegetation and rocky areas for small fish to hide and find food.

As she grew, she started eating larger insects like mayflies and dragon flies. She also discovered that other smaller fish were also good to eat. And, finning through the rocks one day, she discovered crayfish. They would eventually become her favorite food.

During the next two years, her main activities were hunting for food and trying to avoid becoming food. She successfully eluded many predators, including the long legged crane, the otter, larger fish and human beings.

By age three, Samantha measured about seven inches and was ready to spawn for the first time. When the water temperature reached about 50 degrees F in early spring, she moved into the shallow water looking for a mate. She spotted a male bass hovering over his just completed nest. With strong and steady sweeping motions of his tail, he had scooped about three inches deep and two feet across. The border of the saucer shaped nest was defined by a ridge of pebbles, sand and plant debris.

When the male saw her, he rushed forward, eager to drive her to his nest. Shyly, she resisted advance and retreated rapidly. She soon returned, however, and the ritual was repeated again and again. Each time Samantha lingered longer until she was ready to mate.

The male began nipping and nudging at Samantha. She grew excited, turned on her side and began discharging her eggs. After about an hour, she had laid nearly 5,000 eggs and the male had done his best to fertilize them all. With the spawning ritual completed, Samantha swam slowly out into deeper water to rest. The male bass remained at his nest to guard the eggs and to protect the brood when they hatched.

The spawning ritual was repeated each spring as Samantha continued to grow. She continued to elude all predators except humans. She had been hooked and landed three times. The first time she was still quite small, only ten inches long. She had been fooled by a small imitation floating minnow being twitched on the water’s surface. It had looked crippled and she thought it would be an easy meal. The fisherman who had caught Samantha wetted his hands before gently unhooking her. As he carefully put her back into the water, he said, "Go back and grow little girl, I’ll see you later."

The second time she was caught, she weighed three and a half pounds. This time she had the strength and stamina to up a tremendous battle that included several acrobatic leaps. Although she fought a heroic battle, she was and was pulled up to the edge of an aluminum boat that been rigged as a bass boat by adding a foot controlled electric motor. The angler, who’s name was Mike, reached into the water, grabbed her lower jaw and hoisted her aboard. As she was being gently unhooked, she heard her captor say, "Nice fight Beautiful, you deserve to go free. I hope we meet again."

The third and last time she was hooked was just spring, just after spawning season. She had been exhausted and had not eaten for several days. As she rested, she saw an avocado colored plastic grub being slowly and tantalizing hopping across the rocks.

As she sucked the grub into her mouth, her head was snapped sideways by some unseen force. She fought gallantly but in her weakened, post spawn condition she was soon being hoisted aboard another bass boat. "Hey Mike, hand me those scales," she heard her captor say.

"Wow! She’s only a couple of ounces under the state record. Bet she would have been at least a pound heavier if we’d caught her before she had spawned. I’ll release her. Maybe we can catch her next spring before spawning season."

And now, as Samantha cruised the shallows and reminisced the past years events, she was snapped back to the present by a nearby splash. As she looked up, a crayfish imitation crankbait, looking and acting very much like the real thing came scurrying towards her. For just a moment, she was tempted to give chase, but her mind was now occupied with the spawning ritual, not food.

Samantha spawned that spring and the next one as well. Although she grew larger that the current Washington State smallmouth record, she was never hooked again. She finally died peacefully from old age at 15 years.

Proof of this story now exists in Washington State’s Lake Sammamish. The lake is now considered one of the premier smallmouth bass lakes in the state. Smallmouth of all sizes and ages cruise there, some of them truly lunkers -- and a few just might qualify for a new state record.