BIGGEST BASS FISHING
The Impossible
By Tony Stoltz
DREAM
To dream the impossible dream, To fight the unbeatable foe, To run where the brave dare not go…
Don Quixote, from The Man of La Mancha
S
ixteenth century Spanish playwright and
poet, Miguel de Cervantes, wrote of a man
blindly pursuing one objective. His hero,
Don Quixote, was really a simple soul in Alonzo Quixano - a scorned and single-minded
man, pursuing a dream blindly despite many
hardships and despite it being, possibly, completely
unattainable.
When first you meet big bass specialist, Joe
Everett, you know
instantly that
this is not your
ordinary ‘wake
up on Saturday
morning and
go fishing for
bass’ type of angler. There’s a determination that’s etched into his skin, across his face and coursing throughout every vein in his body. The man just oozes the sense that he’s on to something that you, clearly, are not. He gets it, in a way that many can’t or don’t and won’t allow themselves to, not completely. In fact, Everett maybe ‘gets it’ and ‘it’ is something that only he can see. Only he can comprehend.
Everett’s not tilting at windmills or posing attacks on flocks of sheep, such as Cervantes’ Don Quixote. But he is taking on what many believe to be an impossible quest.
Joe Everett believes that the next world record sized largemouth bass lives in a small Orange County California impoundment and that he, and likely only he, will one day catch that bass.
He painstakingly attacks 128-acre Lake
Mission Viejo (LMV), a private lake open only
to community residents and their guests,
knowing that he will one day catch the
bass of a lifetime; a world-record sized
largemouth bass.
Everett began fishing LMV back in
1989, soaking bluegills and catching big
bass. He fished the lake legally for
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