This one comes from a gentleman named Harry...

Beginner's Luck:
The Bass from Lake Moultrie

Back in the 70's, I took a Chief Radioman off my Submarine bass fishing for the first time in his life. I picked him up from his house in Charleston S.C. before daylight and got an inkling of what was to come when he got into my truck with a beer instead of coffee!

Well, I took him to Lake Moultrie in Monks Corner, to an area called the Hatchery. I was going to have him get out of the boat and wade with me, but he would have no part of that. So I pointed out some small trees sticking up out of the water and told him to cast to those.

He had an old fiber glass rod and a Zebco 33 for a reel, and the line was so old it had turned yellow. He made an initial cast with a plastic worm I had tied on for him, and the line only went about 10 feet and fell by a tree near the boat.

While he was cussing the rod and reel, being a long-time bass fisherman I was watching his line sink when I saw it twitch. I told him to reel up his slack and strike, but it took forever to convince him that he had a bite. When he set the hook there was a washtub sized swirl at the tree and the fish immediately wrapped around the tree.

I told him to keep the line tight and I jumped into the water to see if I could get the fish. When I got up to the tree and saw the monster bass that was wrapped around it, I tried to get my net on him, but he unwrapped himself, went about 5 feet and wrapped around another one! When I got to that tree, just as I got my net in the water he broke the line and swam straight into the net!

The fish weighed an even 10 pounds, and it was all I could do to keep him from eating it! He had it mounted, and the taxidermist was always entering it in contests and won many prizes with it.

It was the most beautiful mount I ever saw.