Went out Wednesday to an outlet below a local lake to see if any walleye had moved up to the deep water in the outlet to winter. I was standing at the top of the wall and giving the bait short hops and following it back down when I felt a tick. I set the hook and thought I'd missed and snagged a log for a minute, it just sat there. Then it slowly started swimming off and pulling drag! I was pretty sure what I'd just hooked and knew I was in trouble. The top of the wall is a good 50' off the water and runs out into the water 20' past the bank, making it almost impossible to land a big fish like that on my medium casting rod and 15lb test. The bank drops off very fast as it goes down to the water but the wall stays the same height the whole way out, so it took me awhile to come up with an idea on how to get my line past the wall so I could keep fighting the fish. Thankfully, the water temps were really cold so once I quit pulling, so did the fish. I finally figured out that I could use the strong wind to my advantage by feeding out line and letting it blow my line out and around the wall. Once I finally got my line to clear the wall I walked down to the water and got to the best position I could to keep my line from rubbing against the concrete. Once I started cranking I had probably 50-60 yards of line out and a lot of obstacles to try to steer the fish around. Again the cold water temps worked to my advantage because even though he fought hard it was nothing like what it would have been a month ago. I had no way to get a weight, measurement, or a good picture of him unfortunately. I do know his head was about as long as my size 12 boot thought and I'm guessing in the 30-35 pound range, my crappy cell phone picture does it no justice. It swam off strong after I got my quick picture.

 

Nice man. I always think about this type of scenario when I see people bait fishing off of bridges.

At first I though your rod was on the ground, and I said to myself, "He's crazy if he thinks this fish is 30+ pounds!" HAHA, after studying the photo I realized my mistake... 

I had something similar happen to me a year or so ago.  I was fishing a ChugBug late in the fall.  When the surface exploded and I'd set the hook, I thought for sure I was into my biggest bass ever.  After the first good run, I thought maybe a northern, but when it took off for deep water I realized it was a big channel cat.  Nothing as big as this monster, but at just under 10lb. it was fun.

That cat is pretty good size, good job on getting it in.

At first I though your rod was on the ground, and I said to myself, "He's crazy if he thinks this fish is 30+ pounds!" HAHA, after studying the photo I realized my mistake... 

I was hesitant to even post my weight estimate because I know how small it looks in the picture but when I picked it up I had to hold it above my waist or it's tail was touching the ground, so it was probably in the 36-38 inch range.

Nice kitty

That cat is pretty good size, good job on getting it in.

That dog is even bigger.

Good gravy, Blue, that's a beast of a kitty cat!!

 

I'd love to have had scenario as yours. Nicely done.

That cat could eat the dog.

That cat could eat the dog.

Just about, she's bigger than she looks too though, about 55 pounds when this picture was taken