After reading jasons post on facebook about another guys fishing outing and getting bit by a catfish lol it reminded me of one of my best fishing memorys with a good friend of mine that I would like to share. Its been about 8 years now since this happened but its a trip I will never forget
It was in the dead hot dog days of august during a terrible drought here in central illinois me and my buddy decided to fish a local club tourny on a small lake. My buddy and I grew up fishing together pretty much every week after school or baseball practice, pretty much at every chance but about a year before this tourny my friend fell on hard times in his life and got into some trouble and developed some bad habbits that made it to where we didn't get to fish together for a long time so this tourny was pretty exciting for the both of us. So anyway we get to the ramp its already 90 degrees out and the sun isn't even up weather is calling for 112 degrees with heat index and 2mph wind. And then we hear from a local that the shad population has overtaken the lake and shad up to 3lbs are being caught and the bass bite has been terrible. So we fish all day and its miserable hot and we don't get a single bite all day! So with 14min left we troll over close to the ramp and we see a huge carp with its back out of the water in about 6 inches of water his back was real dark, sunburnt I suppose from being out of the water. So we decide hell with it were gonna try and snag this carp we havnt caught anything all day. So we start bombing it with shallow cranks with no response so we decide to just call it a day.
Here's where it gets interesting we are almost to the ramp and my buddy decides to parellel the bank where the carp is sitting so he launches his rapala down the bank, it runs in front of the carp and the fish jolts at it! He says holy #&$#! That carp just grabbed my crank! So he without care horses this carp towards the boat and then about 5ft from the boat it jumps! Its a giant largemouth!!! The biggest either of us has ever seen! Remember this is central illinois the biggest fish either of us has ever caught is 6lbs. So know were freaking out runinng back and fourth through the cluttered boat I get the net as my buddy trips and his sandles come off I scoop the fish in and it flops out into the boat we both start screaming he's jumping up and down and as he lands stomps his heel and burys his crank bait hooks into his foot!! So now he's pale white with a crankbait and a 7.12lb largemouth stuck to his foot! Now I'm no doctor but I tell him I think I can get it out. So I take the last piece of unmelted ice from the cooler and numb up his foot and said I'm gonna count to three lol so then I started counting 1...then I ripped and turned lol he screamed but it came clean out pretty lucky really we bandaged it up with my first aid kit and took the bass up for weigh in. We won big bass and first place! Everyone did terrible and it was the biggest fish pulled from the lake in 9 years! Idk if the fish survived I think it was on its last leg to begin with and it had a bad burn on its back but it slowly swam off when we released it. Ill try and fined the pic I took but in it he's holding the fish in one hand his foot in the other with the crank in it. Sorry this is so long lol thanks for reading.
