Ever had anyone you were deeply in love with or were under there spell? Would you do anything just to get or keep their attention? Well the story “The bass, The River, and Sheila Mant” by W.D. Wetherell is all based on that. The only thing that came between the narrators crush and him was a bass fish. “There was a summer in my life when the only creature that seemed lovelier to me than a largemouth bass was Sheila Mant,” said the narrator.       The narrator was age fourteen. While Sheila Mant was the age seventeen “all but out of reach.” And before July was over he had already learned all her moods. The narrator would do anything just to get Shelia’s attention “I was on the swim team at school, and to win her attention would do endless laps between my house and the Vermont Shore, hoping she would notice the beauty of my flutter kick….” When he would go out to the dock he would glance casually over toward her, but she was never watching, and the miraculous day she was he immediately climbed the diving board and did his best tuck and a half for her and continued diving until she had left and the sun went down.   It was late August by the time the narrator got the nerve to ask her out. He went toward the woods toward dusk while they were playing softball on their lawn. He was “as bashful and frightened as a unicorn.” He invited her to a band in Dixford which was the next day at nine. She had asked if he had a car but he didn’t and had told her they’ll go on his canoe. He spent all day polishing his canoe rubbed every inch, hosing off the dirt until it gleamed as “bright as aluminum ever gleamed.” He got on the canoe early because he was too nervous to sit at home. He was there ten minutes before Sheila appeared. Sheila came out with a white dress. “As beautiful as she was on the float, she was even lovelier now” the narrator said. She sat down and wasn’t facing the narrator but when her eyes were on him “I felt like diving in the river again from agony and joy,” the narrator mentioned. As ten minutes passed from the date the narrator and Sheila heard bass fishes splashing around. The narrator knew that they come at night to chase frogs and moths and things. He had even showed off everything he knew about them.”I think fishing is dumb, I mean it’s boring and all,” Sheila said making a face. The narrator would have given anything not to appear dumb in Sheila’s eyes. The narrator then gently pushed the rod back through his legs toward the stern where it would look less easily seen or noticed. Then the line peeled off the spool with the shrill, with tearing zip of a high-speed drill.
Four things occurred to the narrator at once:        1. it was a bass            2. It was a big bass           3. It was the biggest bass he has ever hooked         4.Sheila Mant must not know.
“Every instinct I had was to pick up the rod and strike at the bass, but there was no need to it was already firmly hooked,” the narrator said. Sheila had begun talking, and it was a few minutes before the narrator was able to catch up with her train of thought. The narrator managed to keep the bass in the middle of the river away from the rocks, and for the first time he had a chance to put forth its full strength.  Sheila began talking about something else but the narrator had all his attention with the fish. Twenty yards ahead of them was the road. The problem was once he will pull the canoe up shore, the bass would be gone. Once he look back at Sheila “Sheila was stretching herself lazily toward the sky, her small breasts rising beneath the soft fabric of her dress,” the narrator said. When that once accrued it was too much for him so he pulled a penknife from his pocket and cut the line in half.                                           They walked around the fair. There was the smell of popcorn and the sound of guitars. They danced once or twice, but the narrator remembers Sheila coming over to him once the music was done to explain that she was going home in Eric Caswell’s Corvette. For the first time that night Sheila looked at the narrator, really looked at him. Before the month was over, the spell Sheila cast on the narrator was gone, but the memory of the loss of the bass haunted him him all summer and still haunts him now. At the end of the story the narrator learned a lesson; there would be other Shelia Mants in his life, other fish, and he will never make that mistake again.        I understood how the narrator in his situation had panicked on what decision he had to make which was trying to catch the biggest bass fish he has ever seen or keep all his attention on his date.  The problem was Sheila thought fishing was dumb. I do think the narrator handled the conflict well but I would have handled it differently. If it was me in that situation I would have told Shelia straight forward that I enjoy fishing. And tell her I’m going to try catching the bass fish because it’s one of the biggest bass fish I have ever seen so it was pretty much a big deal for me to have caught the bass fish. I would have not hidden the fact that I wanted to catch the bass while on the date. If Sheila would have not cared of my actions then once I caught the fish I would give all my attention to her and be happy or not distracted knowing that I caught a big bass fish. Also maybe if Shelia would have seen the narrator catch the fish she would be impressed on how big the bass is or the fact that the narrator caught it. And with Sheila being impressed on what he had just done she would have ditched her other date and enjoyed the date with the narrator.