So wednesday morning, Mom, Dad, Hudson, Richard and I ventured for what we thought would be another "Tuttle" fishing outing filled with a few nightmares and no fish, but we were willing. I personally had not been fishing in I don't even know how long and was just excited to be going out for a stroll in the boat. Let's remember though that I was childless the last time we went. Anyway, we finally got to Henry's and on the lake at about 9 am- not too bad. We drove out to the cliffs and anchored in amongst the boats that were already there. We all got our poles out and settled down for a nice morning of fishing. Hudson had not eaten anything all morning, so I broke off a piece of a banana for him to eat. About 30 seconds later, I heard a splash and looked down just in time to see the entire banana, peel and all, floating off in the distance. Unfortunately that was not the only thing that he thought would be fun to throw in the water.......somehow a plethora of all sorts of foods, his hat, and his shoe ended up in the lake. I about lost it. Between that and the constant "I DO, I DO" of Hudson wanting to fish by himself and mom trying to save her pole, the morning did not turn out to be exactly relaxing.
Anyway, as the morning went on, I finally got a bite- pulled it in and it was about a 3 pounder....."Not too bad", I thought. And of course we were off to a good start since we were at least not going to be SKUNKED!! Then about a half hour later, dad had a bite. He jerked, reeled it in and it was enormous!! We seriously could not believe it. It was about 7 lbs. and magnificent, which at that same moment, mom had a bite. She pulled hers in and unfortunately it was the smallest of the day, but still nice- definitely eating material. So we kept it of course, and went along with our day. By then lunchtime was settling in and we devoured the usual Kentucky Fried Chicken. All of the other boats on the lake had started pulling out because apparently things were "slow". We were not really feeling that yet and were just enjoyed being on the lake, so we stuck it out. After lunchtime, mom, Hudson and I were sitting in the front of the boat while Hudson began attacking me. All of a sudden, Rich yelled, "Tanis, you have a fish". I grabbed my pole, jerked and started reeling and then the drag started. I could tell this was a big one. Bam, a 6 pounder. I couldn't get enough of that fish. I was loving what was happening and the day was turning out to be heaven on earth for all of us, except Richard that is who had not had one bite yet. I threw out my pole again and about 10 minutes later, I felt a tug........are you kidding me? ANOTHER FISH!!!!! I was so pumped and started reeling and again, another 6 pounder. I could hardly stand it. This was seriously turning out to be the best trip of my life. So with that fish, we were at our limit. But of course we couldn't stop- Richard had nothing so far and we couldn't end with that, so we kept on. Mom of course at that time was having her conscience kick in and kept saying, we better going in now because we have hit our limit. Everyone was against it of course, so she just kept telling us "watch, we have caught our limit and now the next fish that we pull in is going to be a huge ten pounder." We all laughed.
A little bit later, I was sitting by Richard's pole, reading, while he was up doing who knows what, when all of a sudden, the pole jumped and I felt the tug. I immediately yelled at Rich that he had a fish and he grabbed his pole and jerked. And then Bam!.....that thing just took off!! He started yelling and freaking out saying that he could tell this was a monster. I immediately grabbed my video camera and started taping because that fish was taking Richard all over the boat. Everyone was pulling in their own lines trying to get out of his way, but unfortunately that fish swam around mom's pole and was hooked........ Richard couldn't reel anymore until we got it untangled. Finally after cutting mom's line, he resumed attempting to bring the fish to the surface, when all of a sudden, we caught a glimpse of the enormity and splendor of the greatest fish ever caught by the Tuttle family. I couldn't believe my eyes.....he was beautiful, not to mention the dance that Richard was doing at the front of the boat as we netting the thing and pulled it in. I couldn't get enough and just kept saying "Oh my gosh, that thing is huge"!! It was seriously so amazing and basically demolished the trout that we had stuffed from our last successful trip to Henry's. Richard was in heaven.
We ended the day with dad catching one last fish so that Hudson could reel one in all by himself. It was pretty cute to sit there and watch him reeling with this huge grin on his face. He was so proud of himself that he caught "nemo" and wanted more. We had just the best time ever and couldn't imagine a better day of fishing. That one will definitely go down in history as being the most magnificent fishing.........that is until next time!!
