by Dondria Cooper

Created on: February 07, 2009

So being from a small little country town in East Texas, we have set hobbies of going fishing. Fishing has been in my blood for as long as I can remember. When I was younger, I remember taking fishing trips with my father across the street in a private pond where we had farm-raised fish, and we would throw feed out and watch the fish swim to the top of the water and eat. Here recently my father and I decided to go fishing in this pond. The bank is sort of high from the water where the fish really bite, so we brought along a net in case we needed it. So to get the fishes attention we threw feed out and let them eat for awhile. While they were eating we threw our reels out and tricked them and then we start getting bites on our hooks.

At first we started catching small brims and baby catfish, so we would throw them back in the water because they were not of size. I came up with the bright idea of moving around because I looked into the water and saw a bigger fish swim to the top on the other side of the bank. As we moved, the water started to wave and I saw a good sized catfish swimming towards the bank. After seeing this I could not wait to throw my reel in and try to take on the challenge of the task ahead. A few minutes went by and the fish was nibbling around the bait and then it finally took hold. As I struggled to reel it in, it seemed the fish was smarter and was pulling me towards the water. I kept a good grip on the reel and started gaining on it and finally was reeling it close to the bank. I had remembered the techniques my father used when he would catch a fish that was hard to get.

As I was doing so, my father was trying to get the net so we could get him, but he saw something that I could not see. He saw that the fish was about to get off the hook, and so my father did something that I have not seen anybody do. He jumped into the water to try and catch the fish by hand. In doing so I am sad to say that we loss the fish and my father ended up soaking wet and killed his cell phone in the process. I wish I would have had my camera to take pictures or a video because it was a moment where you had to be there situation. It was an enjoyable experience that I will never forget. Every time we tell people the full story they start to laugh. Hopefully when we do decided to go back and try to catch the great mystery fish, we will have a better outcome.

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