15 minutes for what........

[Bassboss]

Man, last night was a night. I was fishing with a friend and in his pond, the bass bite had pretty much turned off, so we we decided to do some gar/cat/turtle fishing. I went for the gar, he went for the cats, and turtles. Both of had slim jim for bait, mine was on float, his on a the bottom. Since I had no other rods, I used my old bait caster, which had only 40 yards for 40lb braid on the spool. I didn't think I could hook into a gar big enough in his pond to pull that much line out anyway. So after putting on a small wire leader, I baited up and tossed it out.

20 minutes later, he's got a turtle and I've got nothing. Then my float going down, so I grab my rod and put it in free spool. After running around the pound for 5 minutes, and tightened up on him in set the hook! I instantly knew I was hooked into a hell of gar, and it started moving around, so as you would do with any big fish, you fallow it. I especially needed to do with because of my lack of main line. It went around some trees, so I got in the water and went around them. It just so happened that their was some rocks on the bottom and I gashed my toe open, didn't notice it yet because of the adrenalin though. We kept on fallowing it to his jon boat, we hopped in with a net, and went after it! 5 minutes in now

It lunged in the air, 4 foot at least.. it was a MONSTER, bigger then any gar I've ever hooked into.
5 more in -
It's getting down to close to my backing now despite out best efforts. It's getting closer now and I'm feet away from my backing (6lb zebco ultra cast of cores )
5 more -
It goes for one more run, and I'm fishing with thread now! I couldn't loosen my drag fast enough to prevent it from breaking and it does just that!

A while later I notice the gash in my toe. So I reel up the line, and it happens that the the graphite frame reel has flexed a lot and the spool in jotty. 15 minutes, for what? A gashed toe, a reel without line, and broken reel. FUN, while it lasted though, lol.