The One
Everyone has a fish story. But it takes a special fish story (and a special fish) to impact a life such as to influence its entire direction. I remember the details of this night like it was yesterday, but have never put pen to paper to describe exactly how each event unfolded. Until now.
The scene is set in late September of 2012. Fishing had been steady for us for several weeks leading up to this trip, so morale was high and I was confident. Still an active student at the time, I remember packing up the jeep before class so that I could leave Columbus and start the two hour drive to my lake of choice as soon as possible. Bait rod, cooler, flathead sticks, layers of cold weather clothes, coveralls, a blanket, and even a propane heater were piled into the hatch. The forecast for the night was grim, but I could not have known what lay ahead.
As I pulled up to my mid-drive pit stop to catch bait, I could feel the change in the air. The sky grew a pale gray, with the wind direction beginning to shift. We had enjoyed an indian summer of warm southern breezes all week, but this was quickly coming to an end. Despite conditions rapidly changing I was able to scrape together enough bluegill to cover me for a full night of fishing. With my new passengers stowed carefully away in a modified cooler I was back on the road. The closer I grew to my destination, the more the incoming weather front increased its grip on my surroundings. Drying leaves, though most still green, were shaken from trees and blew wildly across the road. I remember seeing speed limit signs shaking and vibrating with wind speeds gusting above 40 miles an hour. Fish or no fish, as king Leonidas said in the movie 300, “unless I miss my guess, we’re in for one wild night.”
Upon arriving to the lake I immediately added a layer of clothing. Temperatures had fallen a solid 15 degrees in the time since I had stopped to catch bait. I unloaded at a familiar location, re-checked my rigs, set up camp-catfish, and deployed baits. Wind howled out of the northwest now, hitting me directly in the face and cutting right through my now three layers of shirts. The thermometer in the jeep read a cool 55 degrees already, still an hour from last light. “Only a crazy person would sit in this all night” I thought to myself, but my thoughts were short lived as the sound of a steadily rolling bait clicker jarred me back to reality. Game on. I leapt from my seat and engaged the reel. Feeling tension increasing on the rod tip, I let him have it with a hook set from hell. Almost falling on my back from the lack of resistance, I regained composure and set again. There was weight there, but not much. A flathead of about three pounds surfaced and planed in to shore. Grumbling to myself about the waste of adrenaline and cold weather for a fish this size, I quickly unhooked the fish and turned him loose. “Waste of a good bait” I said out loud as I checked my leader and dug in the cooler for another bluegill. I would soon eat my words.
As a disclaimer, I had been experimenting with several different hook styles leading up to this trip, so I had a variety of hook sizes and models pre-rigged. I now only use one brand and style of hook, largely due to this trip alone.
After re-deploying a new bait, I settled back into my seat. Dusk was just falling now, but the wind had not slowed a bit. I decided it was time to add a pair of long john leggings below my jeans and dig out a snack. As I was crunching away at some Jalapeño kettle chips, the same rod lurched and started paying out line again. “Two fish before dark?” I thought. I engaged the reel and as soon as the line came tight, I let him have it. This time the rod tip didn’t budge as the rod corked the stiff handle into my guts. That’s better. This fish had an attitude and immediately peeled line heading for deeper water. I let him run, gaining line when I could. The fish made another strong run, and I continued to play him from my position on the bank. This was a grown fish, but nothing I hadn’t experienced before. “Forty or so” I said out loud to myself. Just then the fish hooked left and bolted directly at a large piece of cover that I had been slowly playing him away from for the duration of the battle. Instinctively I increased the drag pressure a bit on the reel and immediately felt a sickening thump. The fish was gone. I reeled in my line to find that the hook had just simply popped out of the fish’s mouth. This was unusual, so I cut the hook off and replaced it with a more familiar style. I licked my wounds and deployed another bait.
Darkness came down on me like a black cloud blowing in over the hill behind me. Amazingly, the wind had not slowed a bit and temperatures continued to fall. I check the temp again, 48 degrees. It was time for the insulated bibs. I cracked a caffeinated beverage and sat back down in my chair, still sulking over a nice fish lost for no explicable reason. But the night was young. About an hour passed this time when again, the same rod lurched and began steadily paying out line in the same direction as before. I ran to the rod, engaged the drag, and popped the fish as soon as he came tight. Another solid fish, this one shook his head wildly and tore off for deep water. I kept the pressure on a bit more this time, and after a few good runs had the fish planing toward me on the bank. I crept down to the waters edge and prepared for hand to hand combat. I didn’t have a net with me on this trip (stupidly), so I would have to jaw this fish with one hand while holding the rod. A brutish head broke the surface as the fish rolled onto his back below me. I grabbed his jaw for all I was worth, immediately greeted by a death roll that just about tore my arm from its socket. At this exact moment, slack in my 40 pound-test main line that had caught a jagged rock edge was cut cleanly as the fish writhed out of my grasp. Desperate not to lose another big flathead, I leapt into chest deep water and grabbed the fish around the middle with both arms. The fish thrashed me as I squeezed it against my chest and rolled onto my back on the bank. Soaked to the bone, but I had won. This was a great fish, eventually weighing in at just over 45 pounds. But the brevity of its battle compared to the last fish made me wonder about the size of the one that had come off. The fish was temporarily placed on a bridle, and I went digging for dry clothes.
At about 11:00 PM now, the air temperature had fallen into the low forties. I had enough dry clothes to replace my base layer, but no dry outer layer. After re-tying the lucky rod for the night, I settled back in and covered up in the blanket I had brought. The wind blowing in my face seemed warmer now with a fish on the rope. I was excited to photograph him at the end of the trip and release him to continue his fall feeding binge. Wind cut through my blanket after an hour had passed, and I was forced to take a deep breath and put the still-wet coveralls back on. This was going to be a long night.
Just then, another rod took off, clicker steadily cutting through the sound of the howling wind. This fish was headed the exact opposite direction of the others, but at a good enough angle to simply engage my reel and allow the circle hook I had tied on to do its job. The line came tight, and I began to reel down on the fish making sure not to yank or set the hook as I would with a J or Kahle style hook. The fish did not like this at all. Taking off harder in the same direction, the fish was steadily peeling line at near maximum drag pressure on an Abu Garcia 7000 sized reel. I held fast, happy to be tied to a yet another large flathead. Then…nothing. The fish was simply gone. He had never slowed or stopped taking line, or even changed direction. I swore out loud as I reeled in my slack line, immediately cutting the circle hook off and replacing it with something else. At this point I was still totally wet, shivering, and had lost two very solid fish. I reset the rod with a new lively bait, and started fiddling with the propane heater. I was able to get the heater started, but as midnight approached the wind was still howling hard enough to blow out the pilot light within seconds each time. Desperate for warmth and in an attempt to dry my legs, I covered myself in the chair with my blanket, and fired up the heater under the blanket itself. Though not the safest idea I’ve had, I was warm.
The night grew more and more uncomfortable as 1:00 AM approached. The witching hour. Starting to doze off, I shut off the propane heater and pulled the blanket tight around myself. I was not totally dry, but dryer than before. As I began to drift further off to sleep, a clicker lurched again and screamed steadily into the night. This fish was moving fast, but steady. I slipped the reel into gear, tension came fast, and I set the hook hard. This fish had a serious attitude problem, and almost angrily tore line from my spool out into deep, open water. After taking probably 45 yards of line from the Abu 7000 against stiff drag, the violent head shakes began. I could tell this was a long fish, as the head shakes nearly straightened my arms with each sweep to the right and left. My heart pounding in my throat, I held on praying they would stop. They did stop, but not how I would have liked. Unbelievably, this fish also threw my hook. I cursed into the frigid air, and shook my head as the hills echoed my words back to me cross the water almost mockingly. For the record, this was now the third different hook style that I’d lost a large fish on in one night. In disbelief, I set the rod down next to my chair and sulked. This last fish was in another size range for sure, very likely up above the 50 pound mark. Sure, I had still caught two. But the sting of losing a good fish is never easy to swallow. Let alone three.
I checked my watch, 1:45 AM. I check the temperature again, 38 degrees now with wind showing no sign of slowing. I was not prepared for conditions like this, but couldn’t up and leave with fish feeding this hard. Trying to maximize my chances at contacting another grown fish, I swapped rod positions to move my “big bait” rod over to the area where the first three fish had eaten. This combo consisted of a 7’10” extra-heavy action rod and a Penn 330 GTO conventional reel full of 80 pound-test line. I set the biggest bait I had in the exact position to imitate the first three bites, and hunkered back into my chair. It wasn’t just cold now, it was f*cking miserable. Due to the wind direction I was still totally exposed, and did my best to cover my entire body with the blanket. Sleep never came this time, as I tried to prevent the warm air from my breath from escaping the cavern in my blanket where I sat in a ball shivering. “Madness” I grumbled.
I sat under the blanket listening to the wind chip away at my soul, going through the scenarios of the three lost fish over and over in my head. “Perhaps I set the hook at a bad angle” I thought to myself. I decided that if another opportunity came, I would set the hook with a bit more side pressure to attempt to find the corner of a large flatheads mouth. At about 3:00 AM, that opportunity came.
Lurch, zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. The large bluegill on my “big bait” combo had been inhaled and was being steadily taken out into the cold, dark night. I grabbed the rod, slipped off the bait clicker, and stepped to the side to give my hookset a bit more angle. Putting the reel in gear, I waited for the line to come tight before swinging the rod over my shoulder with enough force to bring me to my toes. The rod wretched in my grip, with the butt of the handle bruising my stomach. Line poured off the reel just as fast as it had been going under the bait clicker. This was a leviathan. This was a fish I had day dreamed about for the better part of ten years by this point. With disbelief I watched as line continued to peel off the spool directly toward the middle of the lake. Panicking a bit, I put both thumbs on the spool in an attempt to slow the beast. I immediately regretted this decision, as the spinning spool blistered both thumbs within seconds. “What the hell do I have?” I said out loud. Eventually the fish turned to the side and circled back toward me. Never losing power, he began taking line back in a different direction. The big rod creaked as stiff epoxy began to crack around the guides with the tip bent all the way down to the reel. Big bait rod my ass. The equivalent of an extra heavy blank rated to cast around 16 ounces of weight, the rod was firmly connected with about all it could take. After another good run the fish came back toward me. Just as I thought I was getting the better of the beast, I realized why he was headed this way. The large piece of cover that had foiled me earlier in the night lay dead ahead in the big fish’s path, and he knew it.
The length of the fight and power in this animal was so unreal that I began to let my imagination wander to stories of people releasing large alligators into these lakes in the past. I remembered I had no net, and for a moment hesitated before walking down to the waters edge to attempt to eventually jaw the fish. Twice the fish pulled me off balance toward the lake as I walked, almost causing me to fall forward into the water. I managed to apply enough pressure to barely steer him around the large cover object he was headed for, and had him planing across in front of me. I was gaining on him fast, and shaking like a leaf. As the fish continued across to the right, I suddenly felt a then familiar, sickening pop. My stomach dropped like a rock. But wait! He was still there this time! The oversized hook must have dislodged from somewhere in the fish’s giant maw, but stuck again on the way out. Thanking my lucky stars, I just tried to keep steady pressure on the fish until he was ready to quit. Then, it happened. Thump, slack. Without any change in pressure or rod direction, the hook had popped just as the giant flathead was finally showing signs of tiring. I had no words. I remember just slumping to the bank behind me in my soggy coveralls and sitting on my haunches as I felt my eyes well up with tears. Anyone that’s been in the flathead game awhile knows the amount of work that goes into each trip, and more so the sheer number of trips it had taken over ten years to come in contact with a beast like this. A legend, a war horse. Potentially even a record class flathead. I checked my drag pressure on the big Penn reel. It was cranked as far forward as the star could turn. The fish had been taking line so fast that I never realized how much pressure I had kept on him throughout the fight.
The sinking feeling in my gut was unreal as I gathered myself up and began to pack my gear. That was enough. I snipped the 12/0 Gama big river hook off of my leader and hurled it into the dark water, never to be tied on any of my lines again. I photographed the 45 pounder from earlier in the night, and sent him back on his way. Checking the dash thermometer again as I started the jeep, I wasn’t surprised to see an air temp of 33 degrees. It sure felt like it. The long drive back to Columbus felt longer with the weight of the night’s events heavy on my mind. I had not only lost four solid flatheads, but undoubtedly the biggest fish of my life. This would also be the last flathead I tangled with for the rest of the 2012 season.
To this day I’ve yet to hook another fish that could hold a candle to the power and endurance of the one described above. Five seasons and several hundred flatheads later, the hunt for redemption continues. For some reading this, the emotions and despair described may not make sense. For others, the familiarity is likely all too real. I let this event bitter me for quite awhile, but now do my best to enjoy every season and every opportunity I have to fish. The fish is always there, though. Lurking in the dark recesses of my mind every time I prepare for another trip.
I look forward to meeting him again.
