One fish down, nine more to go

This is one of the easiest fish for me to accomplish, because I fish for these all the time. Since I moved to my new house, by Xavier, there is that one pond with several monster largemouth bass. I also caught my master angler bullhead there, but I wasn’t part of the program at the time while the minimum length was 15 while I caught a stunning 17.5 inches, neighboring the state record. My friend also caught a channel catfish that was 31 inches while the length limit was 30. But once again, we weren’t in the program at the time. There is a huge bass that Josh and I would call Mrs. Texas, she was big and was only ounces off the state record, but we never bothered to tell anyone. This pond is really small, so it was confusing why we had such a big bass, and I figured the oxygen levels are always in the norm because the water table of the creek next to the pond helped it stay stable during the wintery seasons.

This bass broke my line many times, so that is why I hate mono lines. The braided line I have works really well, but she is too smart to bite at it, because she could see the line. The only way to fool the bass, (was the method Josh and I both used to catch our record bass), was to either snag a leopard frog, or catch creek chubs from the neighboring creek and fish with it. As for I, I stood on the stand that allowed me to see tons of bluegills in the water, until I see a huge dark olive colored oval shaped figure in the pond, I would cast my leopard frog right next to it. As the frog skids in fear, the bass takes a big inhale at it, and then I would give it a second or two and set the hook “Jeremy Wade” style, for those who saw river monsters on animal planet. Boom! I just caught my one master angler qualifying fish, Josh joined in and with a rock bass minnow he caught from the creek, he also casted where I had recently, and boom! Another largemouth bass was landed, both identical, both qualifying, and both easy to catch.

That bass above is my friend Josh's first qualifier, which he used a small rock bass to capture it within the first five minuites he was after it.

That fish above is mine, my first qualifying catch while starting in this program. However, I didn't use a minnow or a frog, it was unique fish, because I caught it with a five inch bluegill! That's a big bite for a good sized largemouth bass. I caught this in matter of seconds I used this bluegill, it's not luck, this pound is small and I know every part of it.

The pond monster though was caught two years ago by one of my neighbors/friend. On a full moon, I guided him on a harvest full moon night, while the pond was unusually quiet. I told him to toss his tons of nightcrawlers to this very certain territorial spot that I scared this one big fish away. With a big bang! He landed it and it measured 23 inches. WAAAY over the requirements, and still growing in that pond! A potentional state record we call Mrs. Texas.

My neighbor above, with the tiny Mrs. Texas, she's still out there inhaling big bullfrogs. (585)