Silent, relentless Raccoon Lake waves tugged at my boots and oak leaves whispered dry warnings before striped bass lightning struck my fishing rod, and I became a consecrated true bass fisherman on a full-moon Halloween night.

The striped bass---the CEO and big daddy of the true bass club---introduced himself with a straight-away, fishing reel-melting, greyhound dash. This was not finesse fishing.

"Quit pullin' so hard," I thought as I held on, kept my rod high, and leaned back against the scaled quarter horse. The running battle ended in a pulling contest, shoulder muscle against fish back muscle.

My friends and I beached three big striped bass that night---three striped bass that bent and broke the net we used to carry them from the lake.

Four kinds of true bass, sometimes called temperate bass, live in Indiana: striped bass, white bass, yellow bass and white/striped hybrid bass, commonly called wipers. Most Hoosiers who call themselves bass anglers are not true bass anglers. The fish they are catching, largemouth or smallmouth bass, are just glorified members of the sunfish family---a family of bluegills, pumpkinseeds and other little kiddie fish.

True bass, unlike members of the sunfish family, like to move around in big open waters, and are sometimes hard to find. But like most critters, they eat and breed. So once you figure out these whens and wheres, you'll probably hook a few, because they're not picky eaters, and they usually travel in ravenous, predatory mobs.

True bass most often are seen feeding in lakes in the early morning or at dusk. Compact schools of bass often herd bait fish to the surface, where the prey fish seem to explode from the water in their effort to escape. True bass most often are seen on stringers in the spring, when schools of bass congregate for spawning.

The author rests while carrying striped bass up a hill from Cecil M. Harden Lake (left). Yellow bass (right) show characteristics of the true bass gang: determined jaw, chrome plating and black racing stripes. These schooling fish are the smallest true bass found in Indiana, rarely exceeding three-quarters of a pound. A world record 2-pound, 15-ounce yellow bass was caught in November 2000 in Hamilton County.