This year, there was a change for the boaters. After catching, we photographed and measured our fish, and then released them, so whether a fish was in the slot or not, we could count it as one of our best five--WHOOP! The bad news, Cody and I have a difficult time fishing Lake Fork. Every year, one of us is the one who catches fish, while the other fishes their heart out but ends up with very little, if any fish. This year, Cody did the catching and I did the cheering, netting, and photographing. Only one of our fish counted, because the other two were White Bass--one was particularly nice.
I ended the day by hooking a Bowfin--a new-to-me species. At first, I thought it was a Flathead Catfish, but on its second surface, Cody saw it, and became really excited, hollering, "It's a Bowfin! It's a Bowfin!" It surfaced three times, and it was an approximate 12-15 pounder! It went under the boat, swam perpendicular to the boat, went to the front near the trolling motor, but the fight was on. Then, Cody asked, "What poundage is your leader?" and before I could answer, that Bowfin swam 180˚ from me towards the motor, and the 20 pound leader section snapped about 1mm below the knot. Bye, bye, Bowfin.