for fishing and the Udster
Hit the water at 6:45 am this morning with my bro. By 7:10 we both had 2 fish each in the boat, that's a good start for a morning. Then the fish turned off. Not another bite for about 3 hours. At 7:10 I caught another little dink bass. But at 7:15 things got serious. I threw my worm right at the edge of the reeds we were fishing. Set the reel and turned to talk to my bud. I felt a little hit on my lite and looked to see my line moving left. I reared back and set the hook, it was SOLID. I mean it didn't give an inch, I love those kind
It started pulling hard right from the start. I said "I think this one is a little better than the others". Then I noticed my line moving off to the right and away from the boat. I could tell he was about to jump and try and throw the hook out, so I waited and when he did I slung the line down and left (this gets them back in the water without putting slack in the line) My buddy and I just about took a crap on ourselves when we saw the MOUTH that came out of the water. I didn't have "get the net" 1/2 way out of my mouth before my friend had the net in hand
After the first jump the fish stopped fighting for a bit. I was able to reel in about 1/2 the line and got him about 3 feet from the boat. Which is when it switched to tactic #2 and headed straight under the boat. (If the line hits the boat when they do this there's a 90% chance it will break) This is when I noticed my drag was set too tight, because he was pulling HARD and no line was coming out. So I loosened it up some and the fight went on. He then ran back towards the reeds pulling drag the whole way and made another 2 jumps trying to throw the hook.
I got him back to the boat the 2nd time and WHAM there he goes again trying to get under the boat. Everytime I'd get him to the surface he'd see the net and WHAM more drag out of the reel
I was almost in tears I wanted that fish in the net so bad. He made one more try for under the boat and then we got him in the net after he surfaced 1 foot from the boat. We layed him on the back of the boat and my buddy grabbed the line. The hook came right out without even touching it
Had I let ANY slack in that line durring the 5 minute fight I would have lost my new record 25.5" 8 lb. large mouth bass
Then I did what I've never done before, even without a camera to get a picture. I released him back into the water. Still kind of hurts because it was a BIG fish
She was skinny though. We're thinking had it been spring time durring the spawn she would have got 9.5 or 10 lbs.
This has been my best summer fishing ever. I've broken my record 3 times now
and know what its like now to fight a lunker that knows what it's doing. Thank you Eagler for your state giving Texas all those wonderful Florida Large Mouth Bass!
