Spend enough time on the water and strange things are bound to happen. I witnessed one strange and very fortunate event this past weekend when I finally got to spend a couple of days on the water after a hectic spring and some holiday travel.

The best bite I had going was fishing crankbaits on steep rock and gravel banks leading into and out of spawning pockets. I was targeting bass that were in a bit of a funk thanks to a recent cold snap.

One of the crankbaits I was using was a Rapala Shad Rap (shown here) with a beautiful custom red paint job done by Ace in the Hole Custom Lures (aceintheholelures.com). The wind ripped all weekend long, which made it tough to cast the light crankbait on baitcasting tackle. Instead, I tied it on a spinning rod spooled with 6-pound-test monofilament line that I had been using to swim small grubs for white bass earlier in the spring.

In the back of my mind, I was a little concerned about hanging up one of my favorite lures on light line and the risk of breaking it off, but I figured with my lure knocker I’d be able to get it back easily enough. Turns out, it was a bad idea.

I made a long cast and caught a small keeper. The fish busted up out of the water, splashed down on the surface and immediately wrapped my line around a limb in a brush pile. I pulled, the limb held, the line snapped. My strawberry red beauty was gone.

I flopped down to my knees to curse myself for the mistake. I could just picture my crankbait dangling there in the brush pile like a Christmas ornament, and it really fired me up.

I backed off the spot, retied and was about to blitz down the bank again, but before I even made a cast, the bass shot up out of the water. I guess it was spooked by my trolling motor, or maybe it wanted those hooks out of its mouth – the hooks I assumed were stuck in the brush pile. Whatever. When the fish surfaced, it spit the crankbait. There it was, floating in front of me on the surface.

I trolled over, scooped it off the surface, tucked it back in my crankbait box and made a mental note to only throw fancy custom crankbaits on 20-pound-test line or heavier…OK, maybe not that heavy, but I’ll never throw it on 6-pound test again.

I guess you could call it one lucky crankbait – or one lucky angler.