The fish that didn’t get away!

Jill and I have spent the last 2 weeks here in Bullard Texas, enjoying a beautiful park, full of wildlife, beautiful green grass, trees, a stocked lake and wonderful people. I think we have found our home base from now on.

Two more weeks here, and then we are off to Atlanta, Orlando, and then Destin, all in about 8 days. Possibly another week here in Bullard before we head back to Nevada and ultimately Phoenix for a month or so. Its going to be a busy 2-3 months!!

Anyway, I mentioned that the park where we are staying has a stocked lake. I am not a fresh water fish lover because I get a rush out of catching big fish. I enjoy throwing out a line, sitting back with a cold one and taking a nap. HOWEVER! In this particular catch and release FULLY stocked lake, there are some huge catfish, so while “Smokin Hot” does her thing casting and working the Bass, I put a big piece of catfish bait on my hook and sit back to relax. I can get used to fresh water fishing this way! 😉

Sunday night, we had the entire family over for Mothers day. Jill set up all of our fishing gear so everyone could fish after our cookout if they desired. It was quite funny as most of our gear is big salt water gear, so it looked like we were there to dominate this lake. LOL Nothing was biting. My parents had gone home, but the kids stayed and were enjoying fishing when all of a sudden, Johnny and Jackie both caught a really nice Catfish. I’m guessing they were around 10 pounds each. The excitement was short-lived, and it was around 9:00 pm so the kids decided to wrap it up and head home. My son Sam was busy helping everyone else and we were all saying good-bye, when all of a sudden, his pole flew up into the air and out into the lake. We all just looked at each other in amazement. That must have been a big fish!! Amazement shortly turned into disgust as I just lost a great rod and reel! Who would have thought there would be a fish big enough to take a salt water rig off the dock and carry it away??

Monday evening after work, Jill and I decided to go cast a few lines while looking for the lost rod. It’s not a huge lake, so it was possible that maybe, just maybe the fish had worn out and the rod would be floating somewhere in sight. No such luck. We couldn’t stop talking about that fish the night before.

It was beginning to get dark. We were discussing the evening before and how much fun we had with the family, when right in front of our eyes, it happened again!!! My pole flew straight out into the lake right in front of me???
I just stood there in amazement as I watched it continue out to the middle, disappear, bob back up, disappear again for a few minutes and come back up in a different location!

Ok, surely I can get my biggest casting rig which still had a saltwater weight on it and cast out there and try to hook the rod. Jill just laughed at me and said it’s gone John. You will never be able to cast that far, much less that accurately. Just forget it, it’s just a rod. Oh, that just made me more determined. LOL
I casted and reeled, casted and reeled, casted and reeled. My arm was about to fall off it was so tired. My aim started getting better and better though, and my weight was carrying the distance. Jill and I both though it was about 50 yards out. One last cast before I gave up and BAM I almost hit the handle of the rod as it had floated handle up. Jill pointed out that I should reel it back in to the right rather to the left because it appeared the handle was leaning he opposite direction. So I slowly began to reel. I felt some weight and then the pole disappeared. I HOOKED IT!!

I slowly reeled as the pole started coming towards us. It was evident that the fish was still on the line as it was running the opposite direction. Fortunately it was really tired. Anyway, it took probably 5 minutes to finally get the rod close enough to grab it. The lines had totally gotten tied up, so I held the rod up as Jill untangled everything. As soon as she finished, the fish ran, I set the hook better and proceeded to reel it in. I don’t have a scale, but we guessed between 12-15 pound catfish.

Jill and I high-fived, packed the gear and went to the MH for dinner. The night had been a huge success!!Now that is a fish story, complete with pictures that I can tell my grandkids one day. 😉