The New Personal Best...

Let me tell you a story.... I was fishing at the pond near our apartment where I usually catch 8 to 12 inch catfish by the bucket load. I have seen some big fish in this pond but have never been able to catch them so I went to the local bait shop and inquired on how I might find myself fighting one of these monsters. The guy took me over to the big hooks and gave me the biggest treble hook he had and said "if he won't bite, hook em." So that's what I set out to do. One full lap around this pond is 1 mile and I had made 1 and a half trips around it before I finally saw the big one. He was swimming out from under the wood walk way the city has built on that side of the pond. I tossed this hook out there and ripped it back until it was were I figured he was and I pulled one hard time and wouldn't you know it I had no control over what happened with that fish. I usually fish with 4lb test line but I wasn't going to be that crazy...yet. I had 15lb line on just in case and I needed every bit of it. He took me half way around the pond. It must of been a sight, me running with a pole bent in half with a crazy look on my face of excitement. It was 20 mins. of pure bliss. Once I got him in close enough I realized my next problem, he's huge and the bottom of the walk way is still 4 feet above the water. So another funny sight is me on my stomach trying to figure out some way to get a hold of this fish. Oh I forgot to tell you that toward the end of the fight he broke my reel!! Yeah I was pulling in line and letting it out by hand. What a fight. Finally I was able to get a hold right behind both gills and hull this monster onto the walk way. The battle is over right? Wrong. There is no way I'm throwing this fish back in without knowing how much it weighs but dumby me didn't bring the scale, what was I thinking. So the next funny sight, I am running 1/2 a mile with a 20lb fish back to the other side of the pond where my car is parked. There was one other guy fishing and he was cheering me on the whole time. I got within 100 yards of the car when I had to stop because I was tired, he was heavy, and he was dieing from being out of the water to long. I know what you fishermen are thinking right now "Just put him on your stringer and tie him to a tree." If I would have remembered the stringer I think I would have remembered the scale so needless to say it was also in the car. So I did what any other respectable fishermen would have done, I hooked him in the mouth again, released my bail, set him in the water, and ran like Usain Bolt. Luckily he was so tired that by the time I made it back he hadn't conjured up enough energy to swim off. I picked him up, took some pictures, and let him go. I'm happy to say he survived the ordeal and swam off. This was such a great experience and I can't wait to go try to do it again.


Here it is folks.... all 20 lbs 38 inches of him. This is by far the largest fish I've caught.


You can see how big he is compared to my pole and fishing gear.


Look at how small he makes my trout magnet box look...


This picture is blurry but for good reason, he was so heavy (and my adrenalin was pumping so much) that it was hard to not be shaky. But if you look close that is right at the 20lb mark.





Nose to tail he was 38 inches...

There are two more picture, one of me holding the fish and one of my broken pole. They won't upload right now so I'll try again later.