I’m not a technologically-adept person, not by a long shot. That’s why I called my friend and computer expert Rex Moncrief to come help me set up my new phone.
Moncrief came, got my phone up and running, and as he left he mentioned he was headed home to Bossier to pick up his boat and meet his friend, Eddie Hyatt, Sr. The duo was scheduled to fish a tournament two nights later on Cross Lake, and he wanted them to do some pre-fishing to try and locate some fish for the tourney. Something magical happened that night and Moncrief called to tell me about it.
“I met Eddie at the lake at 4 p.m. and things were going on real well,” Moncrief said. “We hooked and shook off several bass in the 4- to 5-pound range. It was about time to leave and at 7:40, Eddie said he wanted to try one more spot. He cast a big plastic worm to the base of a tree and I heard him grunt and realized he’d hooked a really big fish.
“The bass was taking him for a ride going under the boat. She was trying to tail walk but was too big for that. I told him I didn’t have time to get the net and I’d try to ‘lip’ her.”
Fish of a lifetime
Moncrief said that when he was first able to get his hands on her he figured she may be a fish in the 9- to 10-pound range, but he realized she was bigger than that and almost more than he could handle.
“Once I got my hands on her and could feel and see just how big she was, I knew she was bigger than I first thought,” he said. “When I was finally able to pick her up and get her in the boat, we were both flipping out.
“I got my Bubba scale out, made sure it was zeroed and put her on the scales. My first comment was ‘this can’t be right.’ The scales showed 15.24 pounds. I got her off the scale, made sure it was zeroed and weighed her two more times. Each time it read exactly the same – 15.24 pounds.
“We didn’t measure her because my Golden Rule measuring board topped out at 22 inches and she was more than that. She was full of eggs with a huge swollen belly.”
The duo felt they needed to get the fish on scales that were certified but as it was late, the Cross Lake Patrol office had already closed and they could find no one nearby who had certified scales. What to do next was left to Hyatt.
“A fish that big that had undergone being caught and handled was already stressed,” Hyatt said. “I could have put her in the livewell but doubted if she could make it. I told Rex I was going to release her after we got photos and maybe somebody else could experience a fish of a lifetime like I did, so that’s what we did.”
Releasing the bass
Unfortunately, Hyatt’s bass can’t be entered in the lake records because of not having access to certified scales.
Did Hyatt have regrets about having to release the fish?
“I have no regrets at all,” he said. “God gave me the chance to catch such a special fish and I’m not going to let her die.”
There was always the chance that when the duo fished the tournament on Thursday night that she might bite again, but that didn’t happen. They weighed in 7.3 pounds to finish 12th place.
You have to tip your hat to Eddie Hyatt for the decision he made to release what would certainly be a lake record fish rather than see her die in a livewell.
