The Big One That Didn't Get Away!

Leo and "MOBY!"


I was just sitting around today, its raining again,bored stiff, and decided to make a blog post.
Of course you all are probably thinking more tips and etc. But today I am going to tell a small (big fish) story!In the post before this, an article " Jerk baits do catch fish year round" notice the picture!

Leo and I were at Truman lake , near Warsaw, Missouri, on about a 4 or 5 day adventure. We had camped out at Pomme de terre State Park , On Pomme de terre lake. We had fished the first day on PDTL. And we were bass fishing! My friend Leo, was bound and determined he wanted to catch nothing but catfish on his bass lures! Believe it or not this is pretty common. I have caught several channel catfish on lures in alot of different lakes. He had caught about an 8 or 9 lb. cat on a lure of some kind,(not exactly sure as I have slept since then) HA!

Anyway, We caught a few bass,that were small but we managed to put out some jug lines and it got dark and of course we couldn't find our jugs. We had to go back to camp that night and let them stay out, not a good practice , because Your supposed to stay within talking distance of your jugs.

The next morning we launched the boat and headed over towards the damn and the wind had howled all night. Of course the jugs were no where to be seen! Well, at this point I had figured that either a game warden had spotted them and retrieved them,which meant tickets would be in the mail soon! So I was not exactly a happy camper, well by this time the lake was white capping and was extremely rough and dangerous. BUT! We spotted our jugs, or at least some of them probably about a mile from where we dropped them out. We started to round them up and of course the wind by this time had gained hurricane strength.

We spent about an hour of our fishing day, and about 10 or 15 words that I don't dare to repeat, but we managed to get all but one of the jugs. We spotted it about 8ft up on the bank and didn't dare try to get it as the waves would have beat my tracker to death on the Rock bank where it was lodged. The good news is we did catch a couple of catfish and a turtle, which didn't like Leo at all! Enough said! Back to camp we went, exhausted and wet. You see we not only got soaked by the waves coming over the side of the boat, but we also got caught in a downpour. Not a very good beginning to a fishing trip but never the less we didn't have to shower that night.

The next morning we went over to Truman Lake and launched the boat. A fisherman said he had gotten on the white bass and hybrids up near where we were headed, so excited and motivated off we went. Well we hadn't been long and of course the inevitable hurricane winds started to prevail again. You have to understand something about my luck fishing. The wind has to blow hard and it always has to rain. If you go fishing with me you need good rain gear.

It was definitely too windy to fish the bank so we decided to troll for those whites and hybrids. Right off the bat I caught about a 2 lb white and I told Leo we were going to get healthy quick! WRONG! 4 hours later all we had was ONE, 2lb white bass. However, we had noticed the wind was trying to lay and it was about 3 pm and we still had time to catch some bass ,if we could!

We took about a 30 minute run back towards the truck and I pulled up to this Island and it was like glass on the down wind side and I killed the motor about 60 yds out from shore. Told Leo to get ready to catch one because this was a honey holeof mine and I started changing my Lure. Leo was using a jerk bait and first cast he made! Listen to this !

The lure hardlytouched the water and bang! He got BIT and HARD! Now mind you he was using an ultralight open face reel and the fight was on. I really believe that Leo had not a clue how big this fish was! The Lunker, we called him MOBY,pretty well did what hewanted to do and he came up to the boat pretty quick and turned on his side. I could see at this point that it was barely on the big lure and I knew Moby wasn't done yet. Down he went again and I got the net, yelled to Leo to steer Moby back towards me so I could net him. Now Leo still unaware at this point , how big Moby was. He steered him my way and Like I knew what I was doing , netted the fish.

Now Leo was excited, but didn't take long to realize that Moby was a lot bigger than he had anticipated! I told him to get him in the live well quick before he got away and back into the Lake on us. Now Leo minds pretty well and he did what he was told, and boom the lid on the live well was closed and Moby was at our mercy now.Adrenilin was flowing rather fast in both of us now and we decided not to go back to camp, but to continue fishing for Mobys kinfolk, you know how the story goes. Well I got the bright idea, we needed a picture of Moby and Leo and well the rest of the story is history,BUT,LEO was now aware that Moby was alot bigger than he at first thought. Leo at this point can't shut up and there was no way we were leaving. Which we did fish till dark and then I had to make Leo quit and we reluctantly called it a day.

The moral of this story is, "No matter how bad the day is, no matter what your up against , Hang in there and don't give up." Remembering that day , the odds were stacked against us , we got a late start, fought typhoon winds, and temperatures close to 100 degrees. But we had a good day fishing, and we will always remember the excitement ole Moby gave us! And Leo will NEVER forget that trip! I know I wont! So I hope all of my readers enjoyed this story as much as I did telling It.

And like I always say " A bad day fishing is better than a great day at work" Be sure to enjoy "The Great Outdoors!"