Recovered by Randy Rowley 07/31/25 ©

On a warm early morning in late-July, I arrived at the Deloach Ranch’s around 35-acre lake near Taylor.  Jeff Morris pulled up shortly after me.  We proceeded to unload our kayaks and get them ready for a morning of bass fishing.

This was Jeff’s first outing with his new-to-him kayak, so I made sure that he had everything that he needed to have a successful outing, including three spinning rod/reel combos, a small tackle bag, a fish stringer, and a net.

I launched my kayak, named Blaze, and headed across the lake to my favorite place to start.  I started chunking a Lunkerhunt Prop Frog in Green Tea color.  I’d throw it over a grass patch, hop it, and pause at the grass’ edge.  If I had no hits, I’d bounce it over the grass and resume hopping it on the other side of the patch.  When I’d get hit it was usually right after hopping over a grass patch.

I threw my frog into a spot of open water around the size of a bathtub.  As I hopped it towards the grass, I got my first hit of the morning around three feet from the grass edge.  But the bass had only swiped at the frog.  I paused a couple of seconds to give it another shot, but it declined.

Then a bass hit something on the top of the water around 15 yards to my left.  I threw my frog at it, but couldn’t entice a strike.  I then threw it at the grass straight in front of me.  As soon as I passed the grass’ edge my frog received a vicious strike, and the bass took it under the water.  I waited to the count of two Mississippi while reeling in the slack, and felt the bass’ weight.  But I made a critical error – I thought that it was hooked, so I didn’t set the hook.  Within a couple of seconds I had a slack line.  I threw to the same spot again, but the bass was probably gone.

I moved Blaze around 10 yards to the left and threw my frog just beyond a bathtub sized patch of grass that was around five yards to the left of the main grass patch.  I hopped my frog onto the grass and give it another hop.  Suddenly, an around 3 – 4 lb. bass came completely out of the water, like a great white shark breaching on a seal, and slammed my frog.  I counted to two-Mississippi while reeling in the slack.  But I didn’t feel any weight, so I started reeling the frog in.  Around ten feet from Blaze I felt a tug on my line, but it wasn’t a strong tug, like one would expect from a 3 – 4 lb. bass.  I reeled in the bass without much of an effort.  It was 11” long.  Apparently, it had stolen the frog from the much bigger bass.

I threw to that spot several more times, but the big bass had probably left.  I then moved around 30 yards to another large grass patch.  Soon after I arrived, I heard Jeff proclaim, “Fish On!”  I watched him reeling, but suddenly his line went slack – the bass had gotten off his Prop Frog.

I switched to a Yo-Zuri 3DB Pencil Popper dog walker in Ghost Shad color and threw it a few feet from the bank.  I was promptly rewarded with a blow up, but somehow the bass managed to not get hooked by any of the lure’s nine hooks!  I tried the spot again, but the bass wasn’t going to be fooled twice.  I moved a few more feet and threw again near the bank.  I had another bass blow up on the lure, and hooked it.  It was another 11 incher.

I kept moving down the bank and chunking the Pencil Popper.  Soon I was rewarded with another blow up.  The bass was a lot heavier and stronger.  It was a 14 incher.

I moved further down and started throwing again.  On the third cast I had another blow up.  This bass fought the hardest yet.  He also was a 14 incher, and he was fatter than the first 14 incher.

As I was unhooking it, my gaze fell on something that shouldn’t have been there – the Deloach’s Jon boat was on the far bank, nestled up against the reeds.  The Independence Day storm that flooded the Guadalupe River had also hit the DeLoach’s lake.  The incoming water had picked up the boat from its spot on the shore and carried it away.  Mark DeLoach thought that it had sunk and contacted a friend who planned to come out and look for it using his kayak’s side-scan sonar.

I informed Jeff of my discovery.  Jeff came over and we discussed how to get the boat, which had around four inches of rainwater in it, back to where the DeLoach’s kept it.  At first, I thought that I could walk it out, but the thick grass convinced me that doing so would take hours.  Plan B was to tow it out, but towing that much weight would be tough.  So, we implemented Plan C – we tied Blaze’s bow to the stern of Jeff’s kayak.  Jeff headed back to the launch point, while I bailed some of the water out of the boat by hand.  I then started paddling.

We paddled the around 415 yards to the launch point.  We arrived, and tried to pull the boat onto the grass, but couldn’t budge it.  We hooked up Jeff’s tow strap to my trailer hitch and pulled it out.  We tried flipping it, but it was too heavy, so we spent several minutes bailing around half of the water out, which enabled us to flip it.

We resumed fishing.  Clayton Carrier arrived around 30 minutes later.  The three of us discussed possible duck hunting spots for around an hour and then called it a day.

Did you know that Christians have been recovered from the kingdom of darkness?  Colossians 1:13-14 NLT says, “For he has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of his dear Son, who purchased our freedom and forgave our sins.”  If we place our faith in Jesus, God recovers us by considering Jesus’ death as payment for our sins.

Why were we in the kingdom of darkness and needed to be transferred into Jesus’ kingdom?  Because Romans 3:23 says, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”  Romans 6:23 tells us of the penalty for sin – “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  Colossians 1:21 NLT says, “This includes you who were once far away from God.  You were his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions.”  Because God is holy and righteous, he cannot accept sin.  Any sin separates us from God and makes us his enemies.

The wage that Romans 6:23 speaks of is something that we earn or deserve.  The death that it speaks of is spiritual separation from God for eternity.  We have all earned eternal separation from God in hell.

Fortunately, God pursued us and provided a way out of the kingdom of darkness through faith in Jesus, without us trying to earn our way into his kingdom.  Romans 3:21-25a NLT says, “But now God has shown us a way to be made right with him without keeping the requirements of the law, as was promised in the writings of Moses and the prophets long ago.  We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ.  And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are.  For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.  Yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight.  He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins.  For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin.”

Jesus came to earth and lived a sinless life, which qualified him to take our punishment for us.  Ephesians 2:13 says, “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.”  Colossians 1:22 NLT says, “Yet now he has reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ in his physical body.  As a result, he has brought you into his own presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault.”  Because Jesus paid our debt, we can enter into a relationship with God.  Without Jesus’ death, we would have no hope of reconciling with God and starting a new life.

After our fishing trip that turned into a recovery mission, I ran into the DeLoach’s at their gate.  I let them know that we had found their boat and returned it to its place.  They were very grateful.  Mark said that he had no idea how he would have recovered it.  Likewise, without Jesus, we have no means to get us into right standing with God, but we can if we put our faith in Jesus.