It was too windy to take my boat out on Eagle Mountain today so I caught a few decent shad around 3” long this afternoon. Cut the tail off one, baited a 6’ spinning rod with it, cast it out into 6’ of water, and set the rod in a rod holder on my boat. I was about half asleep when he hit. His first run, he peeled 120’ of 30lb mono off the reel. I would hang on till I could get him coming my way a little, get some line back, and he’d make another run peeling line. I knew he would go under the boathouse if I ever got him close but I was pretty sure I’d never get him. He went around one end of ithe boathouse and had my line around one of the big sleeves that the boathouse rides on. I had to work my rod down all the columns and then around the sleeve with my rod bent double. He got up in an empty boat slip and I finally wore him out. I couldn’t carry my net while working my way down the boat house so I got on my knees and got him by the bottom jaw. He was too tired to flop and I was too tired to get stood up with him. Cut me some slack…I’m 70 years old. He weighed 36lbs and was right at 40” long. Been fishing since I was 5 years old and he’s my biggest ever. He’s back out there swimming around but may not eat for a week. Sorry for the bad pics. By myself that’s about all I could do.

Congrats!

Nice fish and congratulations on the PB.

Beautiful Blue There.

Congrats on you PB

Nice fish! Congratulations!!!

That big blue looks in tip top condition. Not a mark on it.

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congrats!! You know when a fish peels a lot of line off on the first run, it's a good one!

WOW! Fish of a lifetime.

Sounds like a battle of a lifetime as well. Props bud!

Very nice personal best, congratulations.

Nice one. Looks like the EM fish haven't started to put on the winter weight yet.

Yeah, they ought to be as fat as a whiskey barrel. I had to quit throwing my 1/4” mesh net because I was catching 50-250 small (2”) shad almost every cast. If I caught one good shad (6”), I had to dump the whole net into a container. That kills the small ones. I don’t care where you go in the lake, there are huge clouds of them.

Awesome!