It took her 10 years, but Jacy Cobb landed the fish of a lifetime on Monday, Feb. 27. When you ask her, she says she been fishing for 10 years to catch a fish this big. And, oh yes, she’s just 10 years old.
Now her reply to everyone is “people fish a lifetime and never catch a fish this big.”
We had been fishing a local lake in west central Louisiana for three days. Every time we launched the boat, Jacy has had her pole in her hand, and had missed a fish as I parked the truck. I kept telling she has to “set” the hook. She was feeling a little bummed out because she was ready to set the hook but didn’t get the ramp bite. We made our way out of the cove as we had the days before and I had picked up a couple fish and was bragging about it.
The move to bubble gum
She was not feeling her Senko and asked me to change her bait to a bubble gum trick worm. It was not long after the change she felt the weight of what would be the fight of her fishing life. I saw her set the hook and line start to deep water, usually big fish will go deep or jump as soon as they are hooked. I heard her drag start to zip, I told her to move to the back of the boat so the fish would not break her on the motor. She did, reeling the whole time but the spool was not moving. The drag zipped again and I told her, “that’s a good one!”
“I’m trying”, she said.
The fish had stopped, bouncing the rod tip, so I started to worry she had been tangled. I put my hand under hers and had her lift up, still no bouncing of a fish. It felt like forever to me, but finally the fish pulled off of a stick or stump and the fight was back on. She still was unable to make any ground on the big fish, and we still had not seen it yet.
I was starting to think it was a catfish. I reached and tightened her drag and we started making ground. The big fish was finally close to the boat, and we saw her. She flashed when she saw the boat and down she went.
It’s a big fish!
“Daddy, that’s a big fish!” she said.
Thank goodness I had just put the net in the boat. When that fish came out from under the boat, I scooped her up. We both yelled with excitement.
I knew it was eight pounds plus, but I was not even close. A family friend, Mr. Boyd, was fishing close so I called him and asked if he had a scale. He did and had a rooster tail with his trolling motor when I told him Jacy had a big one in the boat. We both awed at the fish before we put it on the scale and it read 4.65. We know that wasn’t right, looked at the scales and saw it was in kilograms.
When I changed it to pounds, the scale just kept going all the way up to 10.4 pounds. We were beyond excited and Mr. Boyd said it made his day to be a part of it, too.
-Chris Cobb
