I caught a giant!

[carolina-rig-01]

A lot of you already know either from the big bass thread on here, facebook, or text messages, but for anyone who slipped through the cracks I would like to share a few pictures with you. Britney and I went to a small lake north of here this past weekend in hopes for sight fishing for some big largemouth, and man did it work out. The weather Saturday was horrible, a high of 52 degrees and rain all day. Saturdays weather really messed up the bedding fish and I was only able to catch a few fish on squarebilled crankbaits, spinnerbaits, jigs, and flipping tubes. I did jack a 4lber that was on a bed late Saturday evening when the rain moved out and we had about 10 minutes of sunshine. That is literally how fast these fish moved up, I made 4 or 5 laps through this cove between rain showers looking for bed fish and didn't see a single one but we got 10 minutes of sunshine and I saw 3 fish on beds before dark. Sundays weather was calm, warm, and sunny, so I knew it was going to be a good bed fishing day. It took a few hours for the fish to move back up but when they did it was awesome. I came into a small cove around 10:30 in the morning and as soon as I rounded the shallow point I saw a big fish on a bed. I told Britney that she weighed at least 7lbs, it's hard to estimate the size of bed fish but I knew she was a big fish. The problem was she saw me at the same time and backed off into deeper water. I went on by her bed so I didn't mess her up too bad and I quickly found 4 other bed fish in this cove. After finishing this lap I went back to the big girl to check and see if she moved back up but she was nowhere to be found. I went back and caught all 4 or the other fish I found. None of them were monsters although I did catch a 4lb male and a 5.55lb female off the same bed which was cool. Over the next hour or so I checked on the big girl 3 more times before I struck gold. The last time I went to her bed I saw her and I got a better look at her, but was still guessing her weight somewhere around 7lbs. She was very aggressive and was running off anything that got close to her bed so I knew it was just a matter of time before I got my shot at her. A few flips into her bed and it was on. I flipped a Reaction Innovations Sweet Beaver in her bed and the second she saw it she attacked it. There was none of the stopping and looking at it or picking it up and swimming it off the bed that you usually get when sight fishing, she flat out ate it. I set the hook and immediately knew she was bigger than I first thought. She came up and tried to jump but just made a fat slob out of herself. She did manage to jump twice and made a really hard run at the boat..........she was pissed haha. Britney being a pretty good net girl handled her with out any problems. The next few minutes are kinda foggy but I remember a lot of laughing, high fiving, and my knees feeling like jelly. I weighed her 3 different times and got the same weight each time, 9.50lbs! She beat my personal best by 1.5lbs.