Bingle.org

Gaarrrrrr

by Amber on Jan.07, 2010, under Amber Bingle, Richard Bingle Family

So we finally got a chance to go fishing again. We needed a break from school, and it seemed like good fishing weather (foggy and overcast) so we tried at 9:30 in the morning. We tried using yet another different bait: bologna.

It seemed to work rather well, as the fish started biting right away. However, almost as soon as the bait was in the water, it was gone. It simply slipped off the hook.

Ashley and I tried for a while, and finally Ashley caught something. It was a brim, and about medium in size. It was at least something.

Pretty soon she was just pulling them in. Three small brim later and Alyssa decided to try too. She got a lot of bites and soon had another, larger brim landed. The next one she caught was even bigger.

Ashley caught one more and then we ran out of bait.

Dad had been at jury duty, so he got home earlier than usual. Hearing about the luck we had had, Dad took us out fishing a bit longer right before sunset. We got another slice of bologna and headed out.

Alyssa went back to her “perfect spot” and soon caught two more, large brim.

Dad rubbed a rubber worm on the bologna in an effort to solve the problem of it just falling off. It worked, and he caught a fish.

It was Ashley’s turn again, and the fish were getting smaller. Then Alyssa caught two more. This brought the totals up to seven for Ashley, six for Alyssa, and one for Dad. Ashley caught more fish than she has in the past, put together.

I was beginning to feel a bit left out, as I was not even getting any bites. I tried moving over to Alyssa’s spot, but she just kept pulling them in next to me.

While Alyssa was catching her last fish I thought I had a nice one, but the reel seemed to stop working, then suddenly the line went slack. In this case “the one that got away” was HUGE. I should know, two minutes later I actually caught it.

Yet again the reel stopped working, and I could not figure out why. Everyone else could, and started shouting at me to back up and pull it out of the water. When I did I understood why the reel would not reel: the fish was too strong.

It was an Alligator Gar.

We caught one of those a few years back fishing at one of the tournaments, but this one was bigger.

It, of course, had a lot of teeth, so none of us wanted to try to get the hook out. Thankfully, when we tried to pick it up by the line, the hook came out. That left the tricky task of trying to get it in the water. We took some pictures first, including the one below.

IMG_2542

That proves that the fish was about two feet long, as my hand is approximately 8 inches across when spread like that.

After a bit of trouble we got the rag around the fish so Dad could pick it up. He said he had to squeeze pretty hard, or it would just flop back and fourth until he dropped it. We got a few more pictures, displaying the fish’s underside and back. (Look in the gallery for these.)

Finally we put the fish back in the water and went inside. We had had enough bites (from bugs and fish) for one night.


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