The one that got away...of course.

Doing fine here in Wyoming. The other "scientists" are an interesting lot, all quite kind and mostly befuddled at my many digestive restrictions medically and self imposed. "You don't drink even WINE?" Yeah, get over it already. Really they are quite nice.

Tired today as I think I slept about 2 hours last night. All my fault. I found out about a local fishing derby happening this weekend at a big lake not far from the residency. Turns out I'll go a long way for a lark. I would never enter a fishing derby in Idaho (more likely to go out of town during it) but there was something funny about the idea.

Anyway, I cajoled 2 other residents into entering the derby too, and after a day of buying cheap wallmart poles, bait, out of state licences and derby tickets we got up before first light to tackle the crowds and the fish.

Now, I remember shore fishing with Grandpa Hall, and it involved a lot of long sitting on the shore waiting for the bait floating just up from the bottom to attract a passing fish. He, in my memory, caught a HUGE rainbow shore fishing from the dam once. (using corn, which is illegal here in Wyoming)

From the title you already know where this is going, but I'm finishing regardless.
Tons of fish rising all morning. Tons of people shore fishing on our end of the lake. It is quiet and you can hear each other. No one catches anything all morning.

Then around 10am after 4 hrs of changing baits every 40 min or so... strike. BIG strike. In fact I breifly thought some sort of log must have drifted into my line with the wind or something.

I battled the thing for only 10 minutes or so letting it run and then reeling in with the slack when it ran straight toward shore in front of me. It was a HUGE fish I had never seen on the end of any pole I'd ever been holding. Grey, huge dorsal fin, fat round tummy. One of the other residents (who clearly hadn't fished much) was super excited and eagerly decided to grab my line and "pull" it in by hand.

Yeah, snap.

I'm not sure how much longer my 6lb leader line would have held up anyway, but dang, it was a giant. Really.
The other resident who IS a very experienced fisher came up just at the point that I was being"helped", and got a good look at the fish.
He feels certain it was a trophy sized small mouth bass. I feel certain it was a big ol daddy that was cool to at least play with for a while and see close up.

After that no more bites, lots of wind, tired, grumpy and an attempt at a nap that made me feel worse.

It was a fun day and certainly out of the norm for me.

Hey Gordon... when was the last time you got out that fishing boat? I'm primed and game!