The Big Catch

English Essay #1 Revision
Word Count: 981

I have been a fisherman for many years. My passion for fishing comes from knowing that each time I go out, I have a chance to catch a big one. I had caught a few fish that I believed were nice enough to be considered the big one, but my dad did not agree. I had caught a few three and a half pound fish, but my dad still wanted something bigger. I tried so hard to catch a fish worthy of being mounted, then one day my dream came true. It was around six o’clock in the morning, and the alarm on my phone went off. I turned it off and rolled out of bed. I was quite tired, but I was alright with getting up because I knew I was getting up for a good reason. I jumped into the shower to start off my day. After getting out of the shower I got dressed, then made myself a bowl of cereal.

Next, it was time to prepare myself for a full day of fishing. I went out to the garage to get all of my fishing equipment together. I pulled my pole down from the rack, then tied it down onto the four-wheeler. Afterwards, I tied my tackle box down to the front, and I filled the four-wheeler full with gasoline. It was now time to go to the lake. I started up the four-wheeler and headed away from the house. My destination was only right across the road. There are three ponds on the other side of the road which I had to choose from. That day I decided to fish the very last pond. It is the farthest one away from my house and it is also the biggest. The lake is about five acres and partly surrounded by thick woods. It was still quite early in the morning, but it was already beginning to heat up. I could already tell that it would be a blistering, humid day.
As the temperature rose, so did my passion to catch a big one. I had been fishing for about 30 minutes, and I had only caught a few fish. The fish I had caught were only about 12 inches long and weighed around a pound. They were not anything to be proud of but they were still fun to catch. I had been fishing with soft plastic worms all morning and they were working alright. I kept fishing into the heat of the day, and now I was sweating and there was nothing I could do to stop it. The heat did not really get to me because I was so focused on fishing. I fished with many different baits and they were all catching fish. The only bad thing was the fish that were being caught were all the same size. They were all to small. The only thing I had left to do was make a change.

I decided that to switch to the best bait I had. It was a top water Pop-R. It was about three inches long and it had a white furry tail, and two treble hooks. I felt like something good was about to happen. I cast the bait as far as I could into the middle of the pond. The bait was floating on top of the water with no movement. I decided to give the line a few tugs, which made the bait make many ripples across the top of the water. Then, all of the sudden from under the bait a huge, largemouth bass appeared. The fish smashed the bait. On the top of the water there was ripples and splashing everywhere. I set the hook and the bass was hooked. I started to reel in the fish and I knew it was going to be a big one. The bass put up a great struggle, especially into the bank. I was worried that the fish would come off the hook when I was reeling it through the thick moss. Luckily, the bass stayed on through the moss and I was able to reel it out of the water. When I was taking the fish off the hook I realized I was even more lucky that I thought. Out of the six hooks I had on the bait, only one was hooked to the fishes mouth. Now that I had the fish I had to keep it alive for a short while. I carefully unhooked the fish and held it in the water while I waited for my friend to go get a tub of water to keep it in. He brought back a trashcan and he dipped into the pond to fill it with a couple gallons of water, in order for the fish to survive. Once the trashcan was full I placed this fish into it.

Then I called my dad and asked him to come see if the fish fit his standard of being mounted. After a few minutes he arrived and took a look at the fish. He was very impressed and said to me, “Damn Jack, that’s big enough to mount.” I was so excited. We took the fish back over to my house and weighed it, took pictures, and put it on ice in a cooler. The next day my dad took the fish to Woody’s Taxidermist. I did not get the fish back until a year later from the taxidermist. Now the fish hangs in my room above my bed.

In conclusion that day was one of the best days of my life. Every time I look at my mount it brings back all the memories of that day. It also keeps the drive in me to continue my passion and maybe one day to catch something even bigger.