My biggest fish ever

It was a nice November day and after talking my dog for it''s noon walk I decided to go fishing. I'd been fishing this same lake for about a month and caught over 30 fish many of them over 15". Just the previous week I'd caught one in this lake weighing 5.5 lbs and 21 inches long. The lake is about 6 acres and is on Missouri Department of Conservation land but this particular lake has no name that I know of.

I usually fish from May through August with frogs. I switched to a worm on a drop shot rig in September and had considerable luck with it. However, on day when I was fishing the lake that delivered this fish the worm wasn't working very well and I switched to a red crawdad. I caught several smaller large mouth on that particular occasion. I went back a week or so later and changed to a 3" natural color YUM bait crawdad. That's when the fun started.

I probably should mention that all the fishing I've done at this lake was from the shore as I do not own a boat. On the day I caught the fish I'm submitting the going was pretty slow. The water was a tiny bit murky from a 3 inch rain a couple of days earlier. I caught one about 15 or 16 inches and threw it back near the center of the lake's dam. I walked down the shore toward shallower water. I was using a bait casting reel with a rod that's 6 feet long. The line was 14 lb braided with 8 lb florocarbon on the last 20 or 30 feet. I was fishing the crawdad very slowly across the bottom, stopping then twitching it. The fish picked up the bait about 15 feet from the shore. I set hook and frankly there wasn't a lot of fight getting it to shore. I suspect the cool water temperature was a factor.

I took it back to the car where I weighed the fish on my 40 year old spring scales and then took the measurement. The fish was 6.25 lbs and 22 inches in length. Now however I'm going to have to buy a new measuring/weighing device since I managed to pull the measuring tape clear out of the scale in my haste to measure the fish. I think this might be the biggest fish I ever caught. After taking a couple of photographs I threw him back. I think I can catch him again next year after he finally grows up. By the way this fish was caught on 11/11/11. Imagine that.