Some people have all the luck. They somehow always get the green lights, winning lottery tickets and even the beautiful girl. We all know someone like this.

Darby is a good friend of mine who always seems to luck out. No matter what it is he always seems to be on the winning end, especially in the outdoors. An avid outdoorsman by nature, Darby has been blessed more than once with trophy kills and trophy catches.

Recently I wrote about Darby landing a trophy sized 5 pound 3 ounce shoal bass on the first trip that I took him on. I told that same story to his dad recently and his dad quickly chimed in, “That boy has all the luck!” He continued on and told me a story about one of Darby’s first hunting trips where he harvested a trophy whitetail deer. It was one of those deer that you come across once every 20 years. We both started laughing and just had to shake our heads in disbelief while mumbling, “that boy must be lucky.”

Being an outdoorsman, Darby hunts and fishes, but leans heavily towards hunting and spends the majority of his time in the woods. He doesn’t fish with me too much, but he’ll occasionally accompany me on my kayak river fishing adventures.

The fact that he doesn’t spend much time fishing on the river makes his accomplishments such as the 5-3 lb shoal bass even more impressive, or just outright lucky.

Both Darby and myself were recently sitting around when he perked up and said he wanted to go kayak river fishing. He especially wanted to try out the new Jackson Kayak Coosa that I have been telling him about. He’s heard me talk about how stable it is, how easy it is to stand in and how maneuverable it is when paddling rivers. He’s been interested ever since.

See, while Darby has been lucky with trophy catches on the river, he hasn’t always been so lucky with the staying in his kayak part of kayak fishing. His first two kayak fishing trips both led to ceremonial baptisms.

The first, and funniest, occurred on a cold February morning where the water temperature hovered around 40 degrees. I planned a short paddle-up trip that I thought was going to be relatively easy for Darby even though he was still a kayak fishing virgin. Of course I was wrong and he took an icy plunge. I couldn’t help but laugh after I saw he was OK. In fact, I still kid him about that trip and the look on his face when he hit the icy cold water.

He always instantly replies how he spanks me on the river with his favorite go to lure, the pink trick worm. The 5-3 shoal bass came on the pink trick worm and he won’t let me forget. What made that fish even better was the hazing he received from me when he tied it on for the first time that day. Immediately I burst out in laughter that echoed down the river.

“It’s not ladies hour,” I told him between bouts of laughter.

He just responded, “you’ll see.”

We worked down the river a few hundred yards picking up a fish here and there. On our way back up we came across a deeper pool that looked like it would hold a few nice fish. I threw in a small swimbait first and immediately hooked up with a fiesty 12 inch shoal bass.

“See that’s how it’s done,” I told him while still mocking his pink trick worm.

Darby threw the pink trick worm in next and the rest is history. Believe me, I hear it all the time.

WILL THE ‘PINK TRICK WORM BANDIT’ REALLY STRIKE AGAIN?!?!?!?

We set out mid-afternoon on a short 4 mile float on a nearby river. The fishing was slow, but we both picked up some fish here and there. The bite wasn’t consistent and it would come and go, but at least we were catching some fish.

Most of my fish came on a texas-rigged junebug colored trick worm, but my biggest fish of the day, a 3 pound 8 ounce largemouth bass, hit a black buzzbait right off an underwater tree.

Darby decided to forgo the pink trick worm at first and started out with a texas-rigged lizard and a small topwater popper. He didn’t hook up with anything big to start out, but he hooked up a time or two. At one point he hooked up with a 3 1/2 foot long gar that hit his popper. It wasn’t what we were looking for, but it was fun nonetheless.

Darby handled the Coosa on the river with ease. Unlike his previous attempts at kayak fishing, he never fell in or turned it over and within minutes he was even standing like a pro. He added that he thought the boat was laid out very well for fishing. Little things like the rod stagers on the front hatch to the paddle stager made all the difference for him and made his time on the water more productive and more pleasurable.

What was cool was that I never went through the ends and outs of the boat with him. He quickly picked up on the Coosa’s features without any instruction and used them to his advantage.

In fact, he even landed the big fish of the day, a nice 4 pound 13 ounce largemouth bass, while standing in the Coosa in decent current! Not able to stand in other kayaks, he saw the value in standing and used it to his advantage to land the 4-13 largemouth. He said the ability to stand enabled him to see the water better from the higher position and helped him make those difficult casts that he couldn’t make while seated.

So what was Darby’s magic lure? No other than the pink trick worm, his bread and butter lure for big river bass! He wasn’t being successful on any other lure so at the end of the day he decided to switch to the pink trick worm. He is glad he did because the 4-13 largemouth is his new personal best from this particular river.

After seeing another nice fish that he landed on the pink trick worm I couldn’t help but wonder how he fishes it. He proudly gave me a quick demonstration right there. He rigs it weightless and fishes it quickly on top of the water or just under the water’s surface.

I’ll give him credit, but I still think it’s funny. However, I know he lands big fish on it no matter how much flack I give him about it.

So is he really just lucky? I’m slowly starting to think otherwise the more river fishing trips I take him on. Maybe he’s just on to something? Maybe I should tie on a pink trick worm? I know one thing is for sure, the Pink Trick Worm Bandit has struck again!

P.S. Please don’t check my tackle bag. . . .