11/4/15 Everything AND the Kitchen Sink

Kelly and I went out to a local river to fish for Saugeyes. We only had at most 2 hours to fish before dark. The time change was a rude awakening and it makes it extremely difficult to get out in the evenings. We were using jigs and soft plastics to target the Saugeyes. What we got was not what we were expecting at all. I started the night off pretty quickly with a decent drum. Within the next couple of minutes, Kelly yelled at me that she had a fish on. I paddled over to help her land it. That is when the fight got serious. Her rod was bent down over the side of the boat and the fish was bulldogging and pulling drag. Before long I realized that this was not going to be a Saugeye unless it was a world record class fish. After several minutes, the fish finally surfaced and we got our first look at what she had on the end of her line. Flathead! It was big enough that I put the net away. I knew that it would be of no use trying to get it into my relatively small net. The fish made a few more last ditch efforts to escape. The next time it came up, I got it by the tail and then by the head and lifted it into the kayak. This will definitely go down as one of the biggest fish I have hand landed. Kelly didn't want to hold it so she snapped a couple pictures of me holding it before I slipped it back into the water and released it. After the release, Kelly and I were both jittery and Kelly said her hands were hurting her from trying to hang onto the rod! It just goes to show that you never know what you are going to catch! This is definitely one of the coolest experiences I have had while fishing with Kelly. She even managed to catch a fish that I have never caught! I'm so excited for her and glad she got the experience of fighting that brute. Our rivers truly have an extremely diverse group of fish in them. They have everything AND the kitchen sink.