On Wednesday, March 12, I woke up around 1 a.m. and left Merryville, La., for my 3.5 hour drive headed to Bastrop to fish Bussey Brake. I have been fishing that lake for the last 3 years trying to break that 10-pound mark, but something would always happen. I normally fish it with my good friend, Danny Lott, but he wasn’t able to go with me this time.
I’ve caught several fish over 9 pounds, one being 9.8, and broke off on several I know would have been over 10. I came very, very close, just couldn’t make it happen. The morning of March 12, I wasn’t feeling good at all. The pollen had gotten my sinuses all messed up. But I finally decided I was going to go ahead and go fish for the day because I had promised a good buddy of mine, Cliff Bouwel, I would bring him a “Tough Turret” for his LiveScope that a good friend of mine, Needham McCollister, from the paper mill I work makes.
I get to Bussey around 4:30 a.m., get all my stuff gathered up, and of course I’m the first one there because it’s about 2 hours before sunrise. I go ahead and put my boat in the water to idle out to a spot. I tied onto a little tree and curled up in the bottom of the boat until it started getting daylight. The wind was blowing pretty good that morning and it was chilly.
Boating the big fish
Daylight arrives and I meet up with Cliff. We start fishing around some willow trees and he started fishing down the right side of the trees and caught a 5-pounder. I got on the left side of the trees and started fishing south into the wind. About 20 minutes later, I get the bite. I set the hook and automatically knew it was a big fish, but I wasn’t worried about breaking off because I had 65-pound braid tied on.
The first time I saw the fish it was just the top of its back. The second time it was just the side of it. I just thought, man, that’s a big carp. Weird that I’ve never caught a carp throwing a black and blue creature bait. Well, the third time she came up it was with her mouth open, shacking her big head, and I automatically knew this fish was over 10 pounds.
I started panicking. I didn’t have my net ready and I was in the boat by myself. So I reeled her up close enough to where I could grab the middle of my rod and pull her close enough so I could grab her and put her in the boat with me. I knew she was over 10 pounds. I was overwhelmed it finally happened.
I FaceTimed Cliff and couldn’t talk at first. He was like, “Are you alright buddy?” I said, “yes, but I need you to come over here. I caught a big one.” He had already fished down that row of trees about 50 yards or so. I put her on my scales and it read 12.4 pounds.
The celebration
Cliff gets to me and I pull her out the livewell. We was both over the moon. A day I’ll never forget. We took a ton of pictures and measurements and released her again for someone else to hopefully catch her and feel the same way I did.
I‘m very blessed and thankful to have held that fish and finally break the curse of catching the double-digit fish. Photos really don’t do a fish that size justice. They are huge. She was 27 inches long, had 20.5 inches girth, her mouth was 6 inches wide and she weighed a whopping 12.4 pounds. A fish of a lifetime.
The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries have done an outstanding job with that little lake to get it to where it is. Unbelievable the fish in there.
