Late August, and the Hill Country sweltered in the grip of a classic Texas heat wave. When you stepped outside the air conditioning the heat gripped, even shocked you with its intensity. The air was muggy and thick and your glasses fogged from the high humidity. Even late in the afternoon, as the sun sank in the west, the thermometer still hovered around 100 degrees and the land lay scorched as if hit by a Biblical plague. No question about it -- it was Hot with a capital H. But I didn't care. It may have been the Dog Days of summer, but I felt fine. You'd have been comfortable too, if you'd been floating in an innertube fishing rig, soaked almost to your shoulders with the cool, clear, refreshing water of Lake Travis.

Quite frankly, the weather was the last thing on my mind. No -- I had more important fish to fry -- black bass, to be specific. Here and there against the shoreline you could see schools of minnows herded into shallow inlets by hungry largemouths. Every so often the calm surface shattered as a bass charged in, and panicked minnows exploded from the water like flying fish. I tied on and cast a floating Rapala -- the best minnow imitation in my fishing vest. I expected an immediate strike. But no! The bass, startled by the splash, dashed away into deep water. At the next inlet, I cast more carefully. Same result. At the third inlet, I approached slowly and quietly and presented the lure as gently as possible. A beautiful sidearm cast on light spinning tackle. Scarcely any splash when the lure touched the water. Perfect. Yet again the bass spooked like a wild mustang at the sting of a lariat rope. I'd made an exceptional cast; I couldn't do any better. Now what? Feeding fish all around me and I couldn't get a strike. I'd hit a brick wall. Shut out. Stymied. Skunked in what looked like a fisherman's paradise.

Paradise is a good word to describe Lake Travis -- all 18,930 acres. In its 65-mile length you can find ...

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