Largest fish I've ever caught!

[Fish'n what bites]

After catching 3 nice flatheads yesterday I decided to give it another go today. So I caught some bait, put them on some sizable hooks and put 2 lines out and waited with beer(s) in hand. After I lost my bait I rebaited and threw back out and it only took about 15 minutes and the bell started ringing! At first I didn't think much of it after tightening the drag and setting the hook. Then it ran! I've never had to let drag off out of fear of losing a fish but you know it's big when you do. I pulled out my phone and called my wife with my cell setting on the dock on speakerphone yelling to come help net it.
Then when we saw it we realized she needed to go back up and get a bigger net. At this point my neighbor is wondering what's going on and is following. When it was all done it took 2 people to safely pull it up in the net, which is now bent but still usable.
It was a hell of a fight. Well over 3' almost 4' and had to be well into the 30+lb or at least it felt like it. I'll take a tape measure tomorrow and get an exact measure of the boards on the deck because nose to tail was right on the gaps. In the pics I'm 6'2" holding close to me. It was a good catch and release and swam of without hesitation.



http://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/05/28/2f6c64d62867c2439ffa61be21d73c47.jpg

http://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/05/28/59c84b7650437c27ef11c2630846b5d5.jpg

http://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/05/28/c597bb4693f4e31d940b87f1a934ab96.jpg
Rex

[ttitan27]

Heck of a flathead!! Biggest one I ever caught was 18lbs. Your fish is waaayyy bigger than the one I caught. Congrats on a good hard fighting fish.

[MNfisher]

What a fish! Congrats man!


Mike

[Tennoutdrsman]

Congrats!! Love them mean flatheads!

[Halli]

That is for sure old man whiskers! ;)

[Alphahawk]

Congrats on your catch.

Regards


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[lupanfreitag]

Great catch. One of my favorite fish.

[Travis C.]

Wow thats a big fish.

Nice job!

[SAMBOLIE]

Awesome. Congratulations on the catch.

[Fish'n what bites]

Thanks everyone! When I look up weight to length averages I get 46-53lbs for a 48 inch flathead. I measured the boards out this morning and that's the length of this fish give or take a half inch. So it was probably heavier than I thought. Must have been the adrenaline still pumping.

[XxthejuicexX]

That's a MONSTER! Congratulations on the catch.

[agelesssone]

When I first saw the picture I thought it looked closer to 40+ than thirty something.:)
Great fish!

[Headhunter]

nice fish.

[mfbab]

Awesome!!
That is one lucky catfish too, hope you hook up with him again sometime :)

[Reel Tune]

That's a huge fish. Congratulations. Before you said 48" that's what I was thinking with guessing the boards were 4" wide which is what I suspected with the shoe in the picture. What kind of bait were you using?

[Fish'n what bites]

Thanks everyone! I was using bluegill on 12/0 circle hook. 30 lb mono with heavy 3 way swivel 80lb braid leader to the hook, 4oz weight on braid 1 foot below to get it down and hold in current. I know higher pound leader is against common practice but I like how mono cast off the abu garcia ambassadeur reels and braid can take more abuse and let's the bait move with less restriction.

[daniel]

This is a 41 pound flathead caught 3 weeks ago so you could guess your fish near the same sizehttp://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/06/06/d426c8c99798edab4a32df3b0fec4f6b.jpg


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[Heiny57]

Congrats that is a monster.

[SaltySportsmanTV]

Nice Job!

[Fishaholic]

Definitely a BRUTE! Nice of you to let em go to make more! Big catfish don't taste that good IMO.