My Fish of A Lifetime

Hi Everyone,

I really appreciate the kind words, text messages and phone calls from everyone the last couple of days. I apologize if I haven't gotten back quickly or at all, but it doesn't go unnoticed. I've had quite a few people ask me what the story is with the big one I got last weekend so I figured I would break it down in a post here to share. 

Sunday morning started like any other, wake up at 5am with the baby, feed the dogs, shower, go to breakfast, etc... Sometime around 11am my wife had the idea of taking out the duck hunting boat to a small lake to paddle around, swim and cast a line, but funny enough, I thought we should stay home and do some yard work and knock out some chores with the Limit Out Big Bass deal coming up, along with an ABA tournament in a couple weeks and prefish in between. Without much coaxing, she talked me into it (good wife), so we called grandma to take the kids and rolled out to the lake around noon. We paddled around aimlessly for a while, both throwing frogs around the lily pads, but mostly just enjoying time without having kids hanging off us. My wife decided she wanted to sit down and paddle and was navigating us around the shores of the lake while I kept fishing. Around 1:00 I had my first fish come through the pads - a scrappy 3lber that came off on the way to the boat - no biggy. Catching a fish was a bonus on a day like this... so I thought at least. About 10 minutes later I had my wife position the boat of the end of a pad field that formed a small point with a steep break of the end of them. There was a thick line of pads out over about 6-8' of water, then some sparse pads in closer to the bank. I threw my bait out up towards the bank and started walking it back to the boat like I've done so many times before but what happened next was what made this day so special. It was a blow up like hundreds of others that I've had before, nothing too special until I gave it about the hardest hookset possible when standing in an unstable boat. I knew immediately it was a good fish, I even recall telling my wife it was probably in the 7-8lb range. I was able to get it up out of the water and over the thick line of pads and that's about when the party started. It proceeded to drag my wife around out in open water for what seemed like an eternity, but in reality was probably 30 seconds, then made its way back to the thick pads. My wife did a great job maneuvering the boat to make sure it didn't run underneath it and keeping pace with the big fish. I was able to break the fish loose of a couple pads that it had swam around and while it was trying to work its way deeper into them, I had drug the boat to the fish. I reached down into the water and lipped the fish. All the while still thinking it was in the 7-8lb range... until I untangled the pads and pulled it out of the water. It was the type of fish that I'd only seen in pictures or magazines. I was speechless, while my wife simply said "Oh my god". We quickly waved down the closest trout fisherman to see if he had a scale, he did, a spring loaded POS - you know, the kind that had the tape measure, a knife, plyers and a scale all in one. When we weighed it on that scale it went 11.75lbs. From there, I immediately called my friend Stu who made the trip out with his digital scale. We made our way back to the launch and I sat in the water in the shade with the giant fish while we waited for Stu with his X-tools digital scale. It was in good health and occasionally would thrash around which was a welcomed behavior because I did not want to this fish to die unless it broke a record by a good margin, in which case you have no choice to get it to a certified scale if you want your name in the fine print. Stuart got there and we weighed the fish. It teetered from 11 even to 11lbs 14oz. Ok, reset the scale, and weigh again. 11lbs 6oz, then again, 11lbs 6oz. After some consultation with the master himself, Tag Watson (thanks again Tag), I knew I had a special fish but not what it was going to take to make history. So after a couple pictures, measurements of length and girth (24.25" length by 20.25" girth) and some quick reviving, she swam back into the depths on her own power. Even after this whole ordeal, she was still plenty strong, good movement of the pectoral fins, gills, no discoloration and really about as lively as she was when I first landed here. Needless to say we packed it up and left right after that. A day and a fish I'll never forget and such an awesome bonus that my wife was able to be there and share the experience with me. 

Final Dimensions: 24.25" Length X 20.25" Girth. 11lb 6oz. 

The next step for me is to send the scale and line sample in to IGFA and see how the scale comes back when calibrated. Regardless I'll never forget it and hope that some day I'll be able to experience something like this again, but fully do not expect it. 

Here are some pictures of the fish:

Gear used was a Dobyns Champion 735, Abu Garcia Revo SX 7:1 and 50lb Braid.