Old fishing stories are wonderful to remember and tell, and I was asked what my biggest fish was that I ever caught. Well, it is too small to mention, but I was a witness to an experience about 35 years ago when I was a wee teenager that will always be one of my fondest memories of fishing and two teen age boys making memories on the shores of the Black River in Western Wisconsin fishing northern pike.

Dan, a good high school friend of mine was so into fishing, and he wanted to catch a trophy Norther Pike! I was all for this as we grew up fishing together and we knew all the good spots to catch them and what better way to spend the day! This fine Saturday afternoon we headed down to one of our favorite spots, a little cove off the fast paced Black River where we knew the big ones came to feed everyday. We had to cross a railroad bridge which every time I see the scene from the movie Stand By Me, I think of the two of us crossing this train bridge with all of our fishing gear and stuff, and wonder what if a train had actually ever came along while we were out there!

We got to our spot on the shore, a little 20 by 20 sand beach that drops off to about 10 feet deep water, and got our rigs set up. We were fishing with live chubs on treble hooks. We weighted them down so the sinkers went to the bottom, then the lead line would be about 3 feet off the bottom with the chub swimming around. When I Northern Pike would hit the bait he would take it out about 30 feet, strike it dead and let go of it. You had to be watching and know when to set the hook as he would then come back for his lunch and wham, you have him hooked.

Dan hooked a big one, you could tell by the way it was taking out line and the fight was on! It was a huge Northern Pike! He wrestled that fish for a good ten minutes and he was getting tired, as he was only about 5.5 and 100 pounds. He finally got it just about to shore and was shouting for me to get the net! get the net!

This is were everything went south so to speak. I retrieved the net, realized it was tangled up in the stringer, which rendered it useless. Relaying this info to Dan I grabbed hold of my gear and got it out of the way. there was no way after a 10 minute plus battle with this fish he was going to give it up, it was going to be landed and landed it was! He got it to shore and ran halfway up the hill dragging this 28 inch long Norther Pike onto the beach and this fish was not happy about this at all! It started doing the strangest flopping and flipping, broke free of the line, and started rolling back down the beach to the water. This was not what Dan was gonna let happen so he did a run a jump and caught the fish in a bear hug, only problem was his head was at the tail and his feet were at the fishes head.

Well, the tackle stunned the fish and it quit fighting, giving false victory to my friend, as he made the mistake of standing up! smiling he stated, "I got it!". Well he was close, he had the fish, but he was really about to get it. The fish woke up......... Yep, that fish did things to that boys face I will never forget. the tail started flopping back and forth, along with his head, bam bam bam, and the two of them went rolling down the beach and into the water in a wrestling match only Loral and Hardey could top.

I was laughing so hard I started crying, and then I got worried, they were both gone under water! What seemed like forever went by and then up and out of the water they both popped about 5 feet from shore and somehow he had this fish turned around and in another bear hug. This guy wanted this fish! He had me drag him and the fish back on shore and by this time they were both so wore out the just laid there, I managed to get the fish on the spare stringer out of his box, and we both sat back and sighed. he was bleeding from his forehead but he just did not care, he got the fish! He grinned at me and I grinned at him and the silence said it all. We had shore landed a Norther Pike !

I see Dan once in a while and I still see the scar that fish gave him on his forehead and it takes me back to that very special day of boyhood bonding and friendship and just plain determination. Boyhood adventures will always be ones to cherish, and this one was priceless and will always make me smile!

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