Well around 1986 or so with in a year or so if I can recall... A buddy of mine and I drove from Slem, Indiana to Madison, In. about a 50 mile trip to go pre-fish for a local Bass Tournament. We got to the river tand headed up river to the Little Ky, then on to the Big Ky and locked thru the locks. fished hard for almost 4 hours without even the closest sniff of a bite. So we headed back to the ramp and got the boat out...He says hey what about let's go on back down to New Albany and put in the river there and see if anything is biting there...I say heck I'm game...So we drive another 50 or 60 miles back down the road again to go fish. we arrive at the ramp and by this time every pleasure boat in the State of Indiana seems to be down at the ramp waiting to get into the water. After driving around for what seems like hours...We can't even get to the ramp....So he comes up with another britee idea...

He say well I guess we can go back home and fish John Hay Lake.... I say after all this mess here, anything sounds good, just to get away from that area. So off we go back towards home and another 45 miles of driving to our town and another 10 miles to the lake. we make it to the lake and from the first cast I know it's going to be a dosey..... I had tied on one of those 20 pluse deep diving Mann's Crank Baits that would dredge up about 6 inches of mud off the bottom of the lake if you had the muscle to get'er in.... Anyway I remember about Paul Elias kneeling down on one knee and having his pole shoed down into the water to get the bait down even farther.... So I'm all the way up on the front of the boat with my rod as far down in the water as I can get it and crankin in the bait....Were sitting in about 18 feet of water with a blanket of grass coming off the bank out into the lake type of cover and structure....Water temp about 75% and air temp around 80 degree's... All of a sudden my rod buckled and I got a biggun on....I can't believe it, my first cast of the evening on the third place to fish and I got myself a wall hanger on my line...

I stand up and set the hook all in one sweeping motion, yell for my buddy to grab the net....Mean while my rod is doubled over the side of the boat and my buddy is going ape on me...He can't find the net he yells...I tell him where it is and he gets it....Seems like minutes have passed since I set the hook and have been crankin in this huge fish.... Anyway as I get the big ole bucket mouth up close to the boat, the fish kinda just rolls on it's side and is lookin at us...My buddy starts screaming , hey you got at least an 8 or 9 pounder there...I'm still in shock, can't believe on the first cast I hook one so big... Now to the rest of the story....As my buddy leans forward to net the fish the fish just makes the slightest wiggle and my big 20 plus crank bait pops right out of it's mouth and the fish rolls over and just swims back down to the deapth's it came from....I stare in disbelief and my buddy just starts going beserk...He's yellin out every cuss word known to man kind and even making up a few I believe.... He can't get over it, that I had such a huge fish on my line and for it to get away in the blink of an eye....I'm disapointed but tell him, well maybe I'll catch him or her again another day... We continue to fish and have one of the best days fishing our home town lake we've ever had.... After realizing that we should have stayed home and fished....We could have saved a lot of money instead of running up and down the road and fishing other spots...Figured we drove close to 200 miles, burnt at least a tank of gas pullin the boat around everywhere and finally got home from fishing around 11:00 pm that night after getting up at 4:00am to start our merry adventure....

Based on a true story and all names and dates have been changed to protect the innocent...he he he lol Had to add that as if it were a cop show or something...But all true, hope you enjoyed my story.....

Get well soon........