Has this ever happened to you.....................

I can remember fishing in buck creek with my brother in law when we first started fishing and a school of stripes came up and was all around darting under the boat. I swear fish that would have weighed 40 to 50 pounds and long as my leg were boiling everywhere consuming everything in there path. I made one cast out with a huge plug and WHAM it was on. Nerves tore up so bad and the fish was taking line faster than a speeding locamotive. Brother in law claimed that there wasn't a big enough net to get the size of fish I had on in. Felt like I had a blue marlin on and after what seemed to be a half hour battle I finally managed to get the MONSTER 15 inch smallmouth in the boat. I felt lower than a snakes belly in a wagon rut not counting the embarrassment that I faced with the other people in the boat. I still hear about it to this day, and I'm sure it will be one of the favorites in the future. Any other stories out there, would love to hear some and a least know I'm not alone. LOL
P.S
Elwood,I know all about those nerves and don't believe there is a better feeling in the world. Seen enough knee buckling blow-ups on those spring nights in total darkness looking for those giant monsters to know that you can never stay really calm. That reminds me might need to take a change of cloths when I go. LOL

I do my darndest to stay "Calm" on the outside especially when I have someone fishing with me, but on the inside I am doing backflips (and for those that know me you are laughing your a$$ off at the thought of my big behind doing flips as you read).

I was at Cumberland a couple of years ago with my brother (only my brother because my parents told me he is my brother for I don't really claim him at all, as a matter of fact I really don't think they are my parents either). I buy his fishing liscense on the way down, put him in my boat, and give him the rod that I bought for him with the jig that I bought (get the picture), anyways it is about 4am and he is getting a good waxing about 15-0 at this time when I am startled at the sound "Oh Crap!! Oh Crap!! Get the NET!! Get the NET!!!" as I am trying to stay inside the boat as it is rocking from side to side due to his MASSIVE hookset. I grab the net, get to the back of the boat and he is letting on like he has hooked MOBY on a light action spinning rod. He is giving it heck, I thought he had hung the 12 pounder that I am looking for. After what seemed like a 5 minute fight I lay the net under a 6 inch ROCKBASS. What in the Hell are you doing I say, he says well it was pulling really hard and I thought it was a big one. I started laughing and told him, wait until you hook a 5 pound Brown fish, Get the net (HA HA HA). I get back up front and the very next cast he makes, he say that he thinks he is hung up. I look out to see if I can tell where he is so I can go get it and to my suprise I see this blue line glowing in the distance from the blacklight that is swinging from a tree about 40 feet up, dropping all the way down to the edge. He was so jacked up that he was 20 yards from the bank and made a cast about 40 feet up into the tree on the bank, never got that jig back. He ended up taking a good whipping that night with the final score of 22-2, mine were all smallies for I don't count rockbass and his 2 were rockbass for in his opinion if it has 2 eyes it counts as one on the scoreboard.

Heck, don't feel bad, every bass Mike Ikeconelli hooks is a giant until he gets it in, that for some reason just cracks me up. :P

Yea maybe thats why I like to watch him. It's funny how in the heat of the moment a person's mind can play very cruel tricks on him.

Ok, Here I am fishing out of a 14 foot John Boat, rigged up like a Big Bass Boat if I ever did see one... Must see Pictures to see how I customized this baby... Some peeps might have even seen me fishing out of it on Taylorsville or Guist Creek Lake....Anyway The boys and myself were fishing out of ole Greenie one morning on Taylorsville Lake. Me throwing my trusty RC5 Shad Rap, My oldest son in the back of the boat throwin his lucky beetle spin, and my youngest son up next to me throwing a 1 1/2 inch rapala count down. The morning was goin really well, had two keepers and a bunch of small ones... All of a sudden my young son rares back and sets the hook with his almighty zebco 33, 5 1/2 boron rod and 10 lb. Trilene line... The rod is about doubled over and the boys gritt'n his teeth. He says man dad I got a biggun on here. He pumps the rod and takes in some line and pumps the rod again. All of a sudden the line peels out of the zebco like fire shooting out of a Flame Thrower... I tell him to hang on and give it all the line it needs... He starts winding up some line again and pump'n the rod back and forth while takin in line... Now you got to picture this my youngest son is about 4 foot tall and might have weighed about 55 lbs soaking wet at this time around age 8. Back to the fish fighten, anyway he pulls up on the rod again, all he can, he tells me , dad you got to get em in...I tell him, no you hooked him, you got to get him in. He pulls back some more, while I reach for the net. The fish is coming up now and all of a sudden he gets a fresh dive in him and heads back to the bottom. My son is about as red in the face as the sun, from all the reel'n and pullin of his rod and the fish pullin on him. Finally the fish heads back up and dives again. He begs me to take his pole, so I do and just as I bring teh fish up beside the boat for my oldest son to net...What happens, the hook just pops right out of the fishes lip... I can't believe it, after fighting so long and hard the bait just pops out and the fish slowy swims off. Too my amazement, my youngest son is just in awe, he looks at me and then sits down and starts crying his eyes out...I feel so sorry for him, I think to myself, man if only I hadn't took the rod from him, he might have landed the fish... I tell him I'm so really sorry for letting his fish of a lifetime get away... Almost crying myself, over seeing the tears flow down his cheeks... He stops crying and looks at me with the biggest, saddest stare and says....I ain't crying cause the fish got away, I'm crying because my arms are hurting so bad from fighting that fish for so long...I'm speachless, and finally tell him that he'll finally catch one of those big brutes again one day... When we finally get home he has one heck of a story to tell his mother and grandparents of how he battled and fought the biggest " CARP " in Taylorsville Lake. The fish had to weigh at least 30 lbs and was as big as he was... The big ones always get away, but at least you had your line stretched for awhile....

Hey Elnut...

I've a very similar story. My brother-in-law.. I'll call him J, and I fished together when I was growing up. We would go to every backwater, small pond/lake, river, whatever to fish, but we always used weights and tightlined with live bait... normally nightcrawlers we dug up.... another story for another time was the time we dug into a nest of baby snakes... copperheads I think.

Anyway, he and I once experimented with lures.... we used some rooster tails, and caught some crappie, but at the time, neither of us knew what they were.

So, now I am a bass fisherman... and I decide it is time to teach him how to bass fish too. So, like you I fix up him some rods, reels, and some baits, and take him out on barkley. I love to carolina rig, so of course I fixed J up his own CR. I take him to a point that has always been very productive for me, has little cover other than rock, but he still manages to get hung up about every other cast. We always go get his bait back... no problem, he is learning.

Well, after a while he is being really quiet. I turn around and ask him, what's wrong. He tells me he is hung up again, and he didn't want to bother me with having to go get his bait back. I take a look at his rod tip, and it is just a pumping and jumping and I say...Are you still hung up? J says sure am... I said J, you got a fish. LOL

Finally, he said "huh?" I said you got a fish. Set the hook, and work him. He got it in quickly... a whopping 13 inch LM. Still his best fish.... not biggest, but best. LOL

I still tease him about that one. He has caught many more, and much bigger, and has not made that same mistake again. The best part of fishing is teaching someone else.

Tight lines and God Bless

Danny

Ok....I had a fishin buddy (god rest his sole) always real competitive with me. He would catch first fish (and usually the most) and I would catch the biggest. We were fishing Cland at night. Jumping from point to point with bang a lures mostly. All of a sudden he sets the hook so hard I about fall out of the front. He is fighting the fish for a few minutes and I get the net and go to the rear of the boat. About the time I got there, he broke his line. I heard about how big that fish was for the next few hours till I was ready to go in and have and adult beverage. Well we decide to try that point again. Its so quiet you can hear the crickets on the shore. We started hearing a rattle, like hooks hitting each other. We followed the sound down the bank and there it was. The fish he hooked (yes same lure) had front trebles in the mouth and rear trebles in the tail. The poor fish could swim at all and was floating on the top. We netted it and pulled the lure out. Well his line didnt break, the knot came untied (again). So he put the 1.25lb spot back in the water and it swam off fine. I looked at him and said "yep your right, that was a monster":7 :7 :7

Last October in Lilly, Striper jumps are up and going nuts, Redfin sails out, splashes, blows up, and I physically see the Striper take it and come up out of the water with it. Big fight, 10 minutes in, feels like fish is running at me and the line gets light, reeling fast its 6-8 foot down as it comes passed the boat, my buddy and I see clearly the 32 to 34 incher as it runs by like a freight train, couple more pulls, line going slack, so he must be coming back. Then nothing for just an instant, then another smaller run, feels like he's tired, and get it up close again. Just seeing color, but no silver, seeing BROWN now??!?!!?!?!?. As it came shallow, yep, its now a small mouth. So my best guess is the smallies were under the Stripers picking up what the Stripers stunned at the surface. Striper hit the fin, I mean me and the bud saw the thing! And we saw it clearly close to the boat. But I think he spit the hook, and some smallie thought "well heck, the Striper ate it and got all excited, so it must be GOOD".