Just lost the biggest bass I've never caught yesterday and thought I should join a forum to look for some support. I'm already haunted by it.
I've been living in Chesterfield for about 4 years and recently got back to fishing as my kids have gotten old enough to participate. I've always been a bass fisherman and mainly have still water experience but I'm ready to dive into the James and learn about small mouth. I've also gotten into fly fishing for pan fish over the years and I want to try catching bass with it now. I'm tying flies that I think will work, mainly minnow shapes. Anyway, on to my heartache.
I arrive at Briery Creek at 6AM and headed out on the canoe. I had my rods set up with a top water plug on one and a spinner bait on the other. I also had my son's Zebco Slingshot with a wacky worm set up. Within minutes "walking the dog" produced some short strikes. After a few minutes without any other hits I grabbed my son's rod and dropped the wacky worm. Third cast of the worm with some heavy jigging pulls and it was on. Immediately the fish was pulling line and the drag was letting it get away. I made a lot off progress getting it towards the boat and it gave me a jump. I can still see the slow motion image of it trying to shake the hook. This fish was no less than an 8 pounder, body and mouth were huge. It wasn't able to shake the hook but out it did take off on me again. At this time I had to reel as fast as possible to catch back up and thought it was gone but sure enough I had tight line again. I slowly made ground again and was right by the boat. Suddenly it was like trying to lift a cinderblock and snap!
