My greatest moment in fishing!!!!!!

Well yesterday was the last decent day for a while with the front pushing in with heavy rain and lightning so I took the day off to try and get in on the night bite going on right now on Lanier. I started out the evening on the boat casting bombers towards the shore looking for stripers and found 2 right away but if they were 2 pounds Id be lying. Missed a couple more and then headed back to the dock. Since we have got the flood lights hooked up the bait fish have been moving in all around the dock within an hour after the 600 watts of lights are turned on Im talkin gizzard shad, herring and threadfin shad just swarming the dock and the stripers will soon show up. Well after an hour I would see some nice 5 to 7 pounders start running through the lights chasing bait but they would not touch anything I would throw at them flukes, bombers, jerkbaits, bucktails I threw it all even a sebile*. They would follow then turn away at the last second and snub there noses at what I was doing. This went on for hours I had one nice blow up from a bigger fish further out as the lure got close to the lights range but that was it for 3 hours of endless casting but I couldnt give up while Im watching fish feed not 5 feet from me. At this point its late around 1am in the morning and Im starting to fizzle out and not seeing as much action anymore maybe one striper every 20 minutes or more. I decided I would take 5 casts with each lure and call it a night. 1st lure 5 casts nothing, 2nd nothing and so on then my last lure was a sebile magic swimmer I launched it way out. Forgot this part Im using 8lb stren original cause the lure I previously was using on this rod was tiny and the stripers werent giants. Back to the story 1st cast with the sebile was a long one to the left of my dock. I didnt expect much same as before but as the lure just got to the lights edge WHAM!!! line starts screaming off the reel and no matter what I can do I cant turn the fish with 8lb test then as we are getting down to bare spool she turned and made a run right back at me and Im reeling like a mad man trying to keep the tension on her and there she goes towards my neighbors dock my heart sunk as this dock has a house boat, 2 ski boats on boat lifts, and a sail boat and she ran right under them all and all this is happening and she is spooling me. I made a split decision to hop in my boat quickly unhook and drop the trolling motor to fight her back out to open water as Im doing this I feel the line begin to scrape against stuff under the dock such as the prop on the house boat the rusty boat lift and the rudder under the sail boat. I kick the motor on hight and drive the boat right into the house boat near the prop neal down on the front and drop the rod under water and tease the line free of the prop next was the boat lifts I hopped onto the neighbors dock with my boat trying to drift away and got the line unwrapped from the second by sticking my arms under the boat with the rod, next boat lift had a rusty old chain hanging under it and I managed to brab it with the rod tip and swing it towards me so I can unwravel it and all this while I got a 20+lb striper on 8lb test who isnt very happy at my determination next up was the damned sail boat and its rudder and prop this was not easy I had to get back in the boat drive over to the sail boat and ram my boat between the sailboat and dock to keep it there while I figured out a gameplan for this one I made my way on to the dock and did the over under all the ropes and cables tied from the boat to the dock and then got on shore to see if I could drop the rod tip under water and finesse it out that way which didnt work entirely I got it free from the prop but the rudder was my last obsticle unless she found the brush piles not far from the boat which she did but she managed to get out on her own I layed down on the dock and tried to get the rod tip low enough to unwrap the line but it wasnt happening so I started to ease her towards me hoping for a miracle as I feel the line scraping and jerking through where the rudder meets the boat. And then after 20 minutes of give and take she must have undone the loop she made cause she was free and in open water again and then I seen her she may not be the biggest striper out there but for 8lb test and all I went through she was the prettiest one I had ever seen. My hat goes off to STREN for this one I swear I will never tie another brand on my rods again!!! And the little lady was on her way to heaven but I took the almost hour to revive her and send her back to the depths I couldnt just let her die after that.

Thanks for reading my story heres the pics. If you look closely you can see the sailboat I was wedged against and maybe the dock!!

Sounds like fun....Nice fish!

Awesome fish Terry! Especially for 8 pound test. you definitely earned that fish.

Nice fish Jersey.

I'm sending you a PM Terry.

WTG Terry! My hats off to you! Awesome story and fish!

WOOT WOOT
AWESOME

catfish willy wrote:

I'm sending you a PM Terry.

Never got it Will

Terry that is one nice fish right there, i like when you catch something like that on line that was not meant to be that is a definite congrats right right there on the catch, great story to terry i like reading the story's that go with the pics awesome.

Okay Terry I will send another one.

Way to go,great for light line.

Thats a good-un buddy.

Got home last night and threw the lights on from 11:30 till almost 2am and only saw one gizzard shad and heard one striper blow up way off in the distance. Friday night I managed a couple of nice hookups but couldnt close the deal and get them to the dock and the conditions were about the same. I dont know what was up with last night but it just seemed as though they werent there for some reason hopefully tonight will be different.

Keep an eye on low pressure and high pressure systems over you and see if that might be affecting the bite.

Congrats to you my friend....