Creek Giant

[Bluebasser86]

My wife was out of town most of my weekend this week, so I was home with the boys, and that means we were going fishing. Wednesday we decided to go to a big creek, one of our favorite spots, right where it dumps into the Kansas River. Normally, it's a little more cut off from the river, but with the heavy rains we'd had and upriver releasing, the river was flowing over the natural barriers and directly connected to the creek, which I was hoping was bringing in fresh fish from the river.

There was a lot more water in the creek, tons of silver carp filtering everywhere, along with lots of gar surfacing and good amounts of bait skipping, it looked promising. I went as far as I could get up the creek and struck out casting an inline spinner, which was surprising, but I managed a net full of good sized shad so things were really looking promising.

 

First spot, 1 thump and nothing. Second spot, absolutely nothing. Losing the boys interest quickly so I asked if they wanted to try to make it through the shallows or go to the mouth of the creek. Both wanted to try the shallows. I got close, but it was a no go, let them get out and splash around for a minute so they could at least have some fun though since they hadn't done anything but play with the shad in the bucket so far.

 

Made the call to go to the mouth of the creek for our last 45 minutes. I didn't have much hope for the spot, last time it produced 2 turtles and I figured this time would be more of the same. Once I parked the boat just inside the current seam on the bank, I saw at least a half dozen softshells waiting for me to put a bait in the water along with several surfacing gar. I wasn't excited, but at least there would be action here. It didn't take long before rods started clicking out line, both gar and turtles stealing bait. Not a big deal, maybe I'll hook one and the boys can finally see something bigger up close. I hooked and lost a gar because my drag slipped badly, I'm assuming someone was playing with the reel while I wasn't looking. Thankfully I tightened it down, because 5 minutes later it started feeding line again, but this time much steadier than the other bites had been. This was one of my channel cat rigs, a 7' M Ugly Stick Lite with a 30 size Okuma Avenger bait feeder and 20lb braid with a 1/2oz egg sinker to a 1/0 H2O baitholder hook. When I set the hook, it was immediately clear that I was outmatched. The rod folded, I honestly thought I'd missed the fish and snagged a log, but then it bowed deeper and line peeled and a huge boil hit the surface in the shallow water. I'd hooked it not 10' off the back of the boat, on the other side of a small sycamore tree that was laid in the water. I had 3 other lines in the water, snags everywhere, a hook I'd bent and bent back multiple times, a beached boat, and the fish was threatening to get into the river current and quickly empty my spool. Time for action, I asked Lake to reel in the other rods as fast as he could, and he jumped up and did a great job clearing lines for me. That let me lift the trolling motor off the mud bank and shove the boat off and start following the fish. There was snags to my left, right, front, and back, I was sure it would just swim in one and be gone. The fish would swim until it just caught the current, and then stop. I was hauling on it with everything that little rod had and both boys cheering me on and leaning and peering into the muddy water trying to see what it was. 10 minutes had to go by, big bubbles started coming up, I told them it was getting tired, then boils from a tail that was a long ways from where my line was attached to the fish. I asked Lake to get the net ready and he sprung to action again and extended the net out and waited. The sinker popped up, and then finally a broad head hit the surface for half a second before the water exploded again and it buried my rod in the water. The boys screaming high pitched screams of excitement over the huge fish they'd just caught a glimpse of, but I was more nervous than I had been the entire time, the fish was so lightly hooked I had no idea how I'd kept it on this long. I told Lake to put the net away, it wasn't going to do anything. I got it raised back up and asked if he was ready to help, he nodded and I stuck the rod out and told him to hold on with everything he had and lift. He grabbed and grunted with all a 6 year has got and got a grip on the jaw and slid it over the side. Screams and high fives all around.

 

We were out of time anyways and only 100 yards from the ramp, so I quickly motored back to the ramp and beached the boat, found some rope and tied her off. Both my scales bounced around the 40lb mark, not nearly my biggest, but for sure one of my most memorable. The boys haven't stopped talking about it and keep recounting it to each other. I told them there was fish in that creek that were bigger than them, they believe me now. We got some pictures and videos, then sent it back and said we wanted to see it again when it's 80 pounds.

This is all it was hooked by.

3 year and 6 year old hands for head size reference.

 

[Hammer 4]

Great story to go along with a great catch. Nice work by your boys too.

[roadwarrior]

Geez!

 

 

[Dwight Hottle]

Great story with some outstanding memories. WTG.

[DitchPanda]

That is indeed a creek giant my friend...little dudes did a heck of a job helping you it sounds like

[TnRiver46]

Holy moly 

[Teal]

Holy crap batman! 

I have landed big fish before that we barely hooked and you wonder how you ever got them in

[Oregon Native]

You all did good...tks for sharing

[NYWayfarer]

Fantastic catch and read. Those are some happy and proud boys right there. Glad they got to help so they know they are part of the catch.

 

You weren’t kidding about lightly hooked. Look at that first pic!

[ArthurLK11]

Wow that thing is huge. Nice job. 

[Dorado]

Speechless 

[Darren.]

Holy guacamole, Batman! Goodness what a beast.

[Herbert Lorenzo]

Wow ..well done great fish , great photos , great story  and great kids .

[RoLo]

 

HOLY COW...That's a super cat!

 

Roger

[A-Jay]

Killer Catch ~ !

Skin hooked defined right there.

May have taken some good fortune to land that beast but there was definitely quite a bit of skillful

angling flying around that creek as well.

Nicely Done & thank you for sharing this. 

#dadsarockstar

A-Jay

 

[gim]

When I was reading the story, I was hoping for a photo of a large alligator gar before I got to the photos.  Darn it.

 

Quite a fish and quite a story regardless.

[soflabasser]

Nice flathead! They are a fun fish to catch. 

[BrianMDTX]

Great story! It’s amazing how some fish are so lightly hooked and get landed, and others are textbook perfect and they throw the freakin’ hook! 

[Lucky Craft Man]

WOW!  That is a BIG Flathead!!  Great Story and fish.  Thanks for sharing.  

[The Bassman]

Don't know how I missed this. Congrats! That'll stick in those boys' memories.

[Tatsu Dave]

Wow! what a way to finish the fishing trip

[Born 2 fish]

That’s awesome my son is determined to catch a catfish we’ve been trying all week with nothing. We will keep at it until we get one.