Fishing Stories

Seeing as fishing time is right around the corner, and as my fishing buddy so perfectly put it, it can't come soon enough. So, for the next few days, I plan on regaling you readers with some of my greatest fishing stories. And why save the best for last when you can use the best first?


THE BIGGEST FISH I'VE EVER SEEN
What follows is the story of the biggest fish I have ever seen. I didn't catch it. My Dad, however, did. Well sort of at least. He got it right next to the boat. I could have hit it with a canoe paddle, which in fishing terms, means that we caught it, and have accurate measurements for it.

Let me set the mood. It was a dark and stormy night, and my father and I were fishing underneath the 219 bridge on Deep Creek Lake. We were using live bait, and fishing for walleye, just to see if we could catch something. And that is when the night took a turn for the adventurous. My Dad hooked into a MONSTER.

I'm not kidding, it had to be about 7-8 feet long and weigh probably 200-300 pounds. Or thereabouts. It was a Northern Pike, the state record pike in fact. And as my dad coaxed the fish in on the light tackle we were using it swam into view. And when we saw the 12 foot long, 500 pound beast, it shocked us with its pure size. Let me use common everyday objects to demonstrate it's sheer size.  The snout on the leviathan was about the size of an aircraft carrier.

It's back was about the size of a tractor trailer.

And I have to believe the teeth would have made a T-Rex jealous.

Anyway, we managed to see the 1000 pound, 20 foot long leviathan a couple of times before it snapped my Dad's line. Ahh well, if only we had a net, or for that matter a boat, big enough to hold this toothy beast. But we didn't.

Needless to say, we have since remedied this, and gotten a slightly bigger net. We can now handle 4 to 5 pound bass with no problems. Oh, and I know you want to see a picture of the fish itself. Here's a picture of the beast from the night in question.

Pretty big, right?