My son and I are still fairly new to the kayak scene. I owned a bass boat for years and enjoy kayak fishing so much more. Can’t explain it but I love it. He’s a freshman now in high school and days to fish are limited. Sunday we drove Texoma. Only fished with a guide in Oklahoma side a few years ago. The goal was to troll and see what we could find.

I caught a 17” smallie on a flicker shad (walleye lure) and then an 18” striper on an umbrella rig. Man it’s fun watching them slam that while the rod is in a rod holder.....better have drag set properly!!

Then it happened. I’m sitting. Not moving. My flicker shad is way behind me in the water. I was fumbling with something.....grabbed my umbrella rig rod and heaved that sucker out. Thankfully the rod was still in my hand when my heavy action rod doubled over almost immediately after the splash of lure hitting water. I knew immediately this was a big fish. Keeping pressure I saw the line beginning to rise in the water and soon the biggest striper I’ve personally ever seen surfaced. Then i got weak in the knees, heart was pounding....please Lord don’t let me screw this up!!!! I get him near the kayak and reach for the net......I had too much line out and a fish this size was going to whatever he wanted! So naturally I missed on that opportunity. Set the net down. Get him a little closer this time and each time I’m in awe of this fish. More and more nervous. The fish is right next to my kayak now and I grab the net but it’s tangled on something in my kayak. Omg. Heart failure at this point. Each time I’d free my net the fish was too far way to net.....so I’d set net down. Pick it back up after getting fish close and it’s tangled again!!!! this happened 3 times where net would get tangled....I don’t know what they are but they fit perfectly through the holes in my net....I’ve already figured out a better plan lol not that I’ll EVER need to worry about catching a fish like this ever again lol. Eventually I got him in the net and was awestruck. Dumbfounded. I could not believe what I was looking at. I’m sure there are bigger in there and God willing I’d love to catch one bigger but this fish wore me to frazzle and I was pretty much worthless for about 2 hours until I calmed down. It’s moments like this, shared with my son, that bring us back to the water each and every time. I’ll never forget Sunday. So glad I could share it with my son.

Hope you enjoyed this novel and the photos. Big fish went 32” and was 14#.
Mitch

Good work Ryno. Good times for sure!

Very nice! What a day!

Good medicine!

and a big thank you to the guys on here....i know I ask a lot of questions and offer little back but THANK YOU to everyone for always being so willing to help.

Fantastic!! Way to go!!

Great post and pics!! Congrats on your catch!! I have caught some big stripers on Texoma, but not from the yak!!

Great catch and sweet story! Congratulations!

excellent

Great post and day!

That had to be exciting!

Excellent recap. Great fish.

That is a very nice fish there. Must have been quite a fight in the kayak.
Glad you finally got him in.
Best of all, you got to do it while out with your son.
Great job.

Awesome! Thanks for posting.