High guys,
I know your chomping at the bit for the report so here goes. I won't say where I was but if you know me you can guess. Tuesday night I had been fishing with my small MS Slammer spray painted and re-spray painted white. It was a night of one fish landed and 4 missed or farmed strikes. I had gone out with the intention of fishing until 9:30 and going home so i'd get enough sleep for work in the morning. Instead I met Joey Castro and his friend SteveO at about 9, after I'd already caught 1 bass that went 19.5-20" long and 15.5" in girth in one area, and missed 2 strikes from 1 much bigger fish in another area. The last hit was literally less than 2' from my rod tip and actually splashed water on my face while I was squatting on the bank to lower my profile. In case your wondering, NO, I DIDN't soil myself at that point, although I might have if I'd have eaten anything since breakfast.
When I met Joey, I told him about the hits and we fished back towards where it happened. Part way there I was reeling my Slammer back over the shallow point seperating a cut from the main lake and as soon as it beat it's way through the rocks on the point it was hit and stayed hooked for all of 2 seconds. Shortly after that we were talking about durability and size of baits and Joey let me borrow one of his 8-1/2" 4-Eyes baits and I left my Slammer with him to hold. Joey, SteveO, and I leapfrogged back over to where I got the 2 blow-ups and didn't have any luck. It was 12:00 at that point and I wanted to go home. Joey told me to hold onto the 4-Eyes and he'd give my Slammer a real paint job. On the way back to the car I Stopped at a spot I had seen activity at and on the first throw it was swirled on but no contact was made. After waiting and throwing 3 more times I gave up and went home and was in bed by 2 and up at 5:30 Ouch!
The next night I went back out there with the intention of fishing where I'd missed the strikes the night before and calling it quits. I fished the areas and had no love at all. It was still before 8 and I thought I'd stay out there until then and call it quits. I worked farther up the bank and saw a light further on. I yelled out asking if they'd had any luck and got no response. I started to walk a litttle faster and fish a little faster taking the bait under the surface. I went about 50 yards closer to where the light had been and was casting parallel to the bank about 6' out when the fish engulfed the bait and immediatel headed to the surface. It made one of those jumps that doesn't get it's tail out of the water until the body has already gone back under and reminds you of a whale breeching in slow motion. It was HUGE!!!!! I started hollering my fool head off asking for help and a Camera. It made a few runs and another jump that was like someone had thrown a bathroom sink in the water.
As I brought it to me to lip I couldn't see the lure and I thought it was on the underside of the fishes body. Then it opened it's mouth and I could see the line going into it's mouth but still no plug. The rubber tail was completely in it's esophagus and the rear hook was around the furthest gill back. When I landed it Nicolo Raffo was half running toward me and that made it all the more better. He was the guy who met me out there the first time I was fishing the Big Wood and his posts here had turned me on to it. He had his digital scale already out and as he weighed it he told me he could here the splash from 50 yards away! The scale flashed on 11.5 for a microsecond, then 11.8 and finally settled on 11.9. This blew my previous Personal Best of 8-1/4 away by almost 3.75 pounds.
I held it in the water while he set up the camera. We took a bunch of pictures with me holding it, then a few more of me releasing it. after it gave a kick out from the bank it just hung and finned on the surface there for what seemed like 1/2 an hour but was probably 1-2 minutes before it nosed down and disappeared into the depths. After that I decided to go home because I knew I wouldn't catch a bigger one, it would be anti-climactic to keep fishing and I wanted to get some dinner and a bottle of Champaign to celebrate. I was home by 9:30 and crashed/passed out by 10:30.
I want to thank Joey for A) loaning me the bait and B) telling my to keep chucking when I wanted to go back to numbers over size. I also want to thank Nico for turning me on to the Big baits and Being my Camera man when I finally got the BIG girl.
Tight lines,
Wade
http://www.calfishing.com/dc/user_files/1676.jpg

ps I guess I (MORE THAN) get by with a little help from my friends.