Don't post here much. Love to fish, but hardly ever get the time, so in the eyes of TFF I would be a novice! You'd figure after fishing on and off for most of my 50+ years I would at least have a clue. Since my oldest son was off work today, I asked him if he wanted to go crappie fishing with his pappy. Of course, game on Dad! We live a block from Grapevine, so we headed down to a cove with our gear, and oh yeah, some minnows for good luck. Wind was bad, and fishing was well, slow to say the least. Except for the catfish story, but I'll get to that in a bit. Since the crappie weren't hitting minnows, of course I opted for some jigs with no luck. So I threw caution to the wind (literally) and dug out an iridescent plastic minnow I had bought at Walmart. Tossed it out and did a kind of slow retrieve and BAM - a blackie. Now my son follows suit and proceeds to pull a dozen out of this cove with the plastic minnow! While this fun was happening, he also had a catfish setup working the middle of the cove. All of a sudden his entire rod flew out of the rocks it was anchored in and straight into the water. It is not like the rod bent on a bite, but just flew to the water. Had to be a monster cat that was cruising pretty fast I think. Other than losing a quite expensive setup, it was a heck of a time.

Sounds like good times to me.

seen a few rods launch like missles in my time ......
with no sign of a bite and gone like a jet .....
sorry about the rod .....
made a nice fish story though ....
and ya got sum fish to bring home ....
there ya go ....
good job

U will be able to tell that Fishin Story for years to come ...

An expert fisherman is not one who goes all the time, or catches the biggest or most fish. A true expert is one who loves to fish and shares time fishing with family and friends. You've got that covered and are in no way a novice in my eyes. Great post, in fact one of the best I've read lately.

I yes sir, there definitely is more to fishing than catching fish.

Not to be all high n mighty but doesn't it upset some of you at least a little bit that there is now some big fish swimming around connected to a fishing pole and will probably die now? I'm not saying you r a bad person, I just hope you had the pole well anchored and it was a freak accident. Idk, just a thought.

I usually dont say much when people start bantering on this site. But come on man who hasnt lost a rod or two in the water. Weather a fish was on it at the time it was lost or not. Who doesnt put there rod down to grab a cold one or help someone land a fish. This happens pretty regular and I have not seen any fish or heard of too many fish being spotted floating upside down with a lure in there mouth. This was a great story about someone getting to take their kid fishing and enjoying a day on the water with loved ones.

i would have to agree with chuck for sure ......
the only thing i ever seen on the end of a line was a turtle
and it was the other day and we couldnt get to him to free him
my bud told me the next day how bad he fealt leavin him there and said i agree again ,,,,,
i am sure the vast majority of the fish that escape this way live on to tell "fish stories" to the lil fish babys ....
about "the one that got away " dont ya see ....
that lost rod and "escaped" fish will live on past the life expectancy of that fish that was put there by our great state for these people to enjoy as recreation .....
i say bravo everyone wins ...fish escapes , fish go home , anglers have a tall tail ,state got revenue and somebody has to go buy a new rod and reel keepin someone somewhere employed makin them....and there is always the great story he posted that made us all smile .....priceless......
....of course as always this is MHO ...

I agree with Ketchn, who agrees with Chuck...great story about going fishing with your kid...and end up getting to talk about the big one that got away with that fancy rod!!! How many campfire generational stories will that one be good for?!!
Many of them if it happened to me...tell us a story like that ANY TIME.

Well, my catfishing buddy called last night and told me about all those 30 to 60 pound catfish that died by his hand...this past week...surely one lost from this story is an acceptable cost seeing how we are a society of fishermen and fisherwomen.