New Personal Best!!

[howellcanufish]

Finally after several years of poor attempts trying to catch the elusive flathead cat I connected. It was not at all what I had anticipated.

I couldn't find anyone to go fishing with last night so I decided to go out and fish the river by myself. I've always been told that cats become more active eaters when there are T-Storms in the area. I setup on a section of river with current out in front of me and a nice log jam to my side. I was on the water around 8pm. 10pm passed by and still not a bite, that was until my new personal best decided to swim by and take my bullhead for the ride of it's life.

I jumped to my feet at the sound of my clicker playing a tune that I'm not very used to...A FISH TAKING MY BAIT! I grabbed by rod, reeled down tight to the fish and with a tremendous swing I set the hook...somehow managing to snap the crank of my reel clean off! Wow! My first big cat on the line and my reel fails. What happens next is pure hysteria. I kept tension on the line and dropped to my knees fumbling for my broken off crank. To my dismay there is no way of "quickly slapping it back together." Plan B is what got the fish on shore. I did the only thing left to do and kept the drag nice and tight, and with the force of my pointer finger and thumb slowly worked my fish in a few spins at a time by turning what was left of a shaft sticking out of my reel. This process went back and forth with drag occasionally peeling out...typically when I got the fish near the shoreline. Finally I tightened the drag all the way down and gave the fish a big heave ho and pulled most of its body up out of the water and onto shore. Now is when I really started kicking myself for not bringing the digital camera along this trip. I measured the fish at 38" in length and 24" in girth. To my calculations that should equal about 27lbs. beating out my previous personal best of 7.7lbs. by a long shot. After several attempts to get the best picture possible with my cell phone I realized it just wasn't in the cards to display my trophy with others. I revived the fish for about 5 minutes and off he swam. Wow, what a rush. I want to do that again!

Here's a pic:

[Gordie]

congrats nice fish

[LOTWSvirgin]

Awesome congrats on the PB. I am still looking for a flat over 10# myself

[Slowhand]

Cool; nice story. That clicker sorta makes every other noise at that moment just that, white noise . Congrats.

[tweedlap]

Slowreel,

Nice recap and a dandy cat.

Cool photo !

tweed

[DTro]

Funny Story and nice fish. Congrats!

[Borch]

Congrats on a memorable night!

[mainbutter]

I'm glad you landed your fish!! Must have been a bit more exciting than you want when you hear that clicker pulled by a big fish!

[MinnesnowtaWild]

That's a nice size fish in my eyes. Once they get over 20 lbs they start getting real fun. Congrats.

[harvey lee]

Way to go.

[wall_eye_assasin]

Great fish and don't remind me about the picture taking especially when your by yourself. I caught my second only flathead and was by myself and it was 43.75 inches long but did not want to hurt the fish so I let it go before snapping a picture. (OUCH). Oh well I will get a bigger one and hope I do not forget to snap a picture........... Way to go on getting your new PB......

[MinnesnowtaWild]

Wow Kirk nearly 44"? That's good man glad to hear.

[Tyler Holm]

Awesome fish Howell. I know you've put in lots of hours for that fish and it finally paid off. Awesome fish and congrats.