I hope everyone can learn a little from this. I know I did. Just got permission from a guy to fish a couple of his ponds ;D. I know this guy pretty well b/c he is my parents neighbor. Anyways I always hear my younger brother talking about feeding the catfish. I thought mistakinly for years that he had only catfish in his ponds so I never hit him up about fishing. Anyways, last week he needed some help with his show animals, so I helped him out for a week during our county livestock show. At one point he needed to borrow my cell phone and noticed the 6-12 I have as my wallpaper. He said he had stocked his tanks with bass 6 or 7 years ago and would like it if I would come see if their was any in his ponds. Needless to say i'm pumped. Place has never been fished for bass 8-).

I arrive on Tuesday much later than intended. Its getting hot fast and the cloud cover has burned off about a half an hour ago, but hey i'm fishing. I'm already let down b/c of the weather when I see the biggest pond has absolutely no grass and the water is fairly murky:-[, but hey i'm still fishing. Set my tackle bag down and rig up a black and blue trick stick. Put my scales in the cargo pocket of my shorts and right as i'm about to start fishing get a call on my cell phone. Hang up and throw the phone in my bag. The pond is only about 3-5 acres so I put a bag of trick sticks in my pocket thinking I would make it around the pond in an hour at the most. So I left my tackle bag and t-rig setup.

I make it half way around the pond with not even I bite. Then next largest pond is now directly behind me no more than 30 yards away. It is about half the size. Since I hadn't had a bite I walk down the dam and over to it. This is where it gets bad. I make my third cast to the bank and bam my line starts hauling a@# out to the middle. Set the hook and the fish is now in the middle swimming in my direction. I get him in VERY fast b/c of this. Grab the fish put him on the scale and he goes 6-2. Only my third fish over 6lbs ;D. All this including the fight might of took 30 seconds.

Then it hits me. My d^$# camera is back in my bag. However the first tank is only 30 yards away. So I take off jogging/walking very fast up the dam. Maybe a minute and a few seconds have passed now, but I decide better safe than sorry and put the fish in the water for some breathing. Right of the bat the fish starts moving around and is obviously not that tired. I make one full circle in the water and she starts thrashing like crazy and gets away.

So now I don't have a picture of the 3rd largest fish i've ever caught and worried like h%#$ that the owner is going to be very upset that I didn't release the fish in the same pond. Luckily, the owner was just pumped to hear of the big fish and would rather had it in the big pond anyways.

Moral of the story is never, ever not have everything you need just in case, b/c you never know.Just b/c I hadn't had a bite I wasn't worried about going to that other pond without a camera. Thank goodness it wasn't a new PB. The fishing gods let me of easy with a lesson learned .

     

I know how you feel, I caught a 7.5 the other day and didn't have a camera with me!

.........and then God created the camera phone, and all was good.  ;D

.........and then God created the camera phone, and all was good. ;D

It was in the car!

oh, lol... didn't read carefully enough. I thought he just had a camera. But still, I ALWAYS have my phone on me, silenced when I'm fishing!!! I feel for ya tho man!

It was actually laying in my tackle bag on the bank where I began fishing :'(.  I'm a genious :.

Take a deep breath and enjoy catching the 6 lber.

Well done.

Every big bass I've caught is on the photo site in my brain including my PB.  I can enjoy them whenever I want.

Nice job on the fish ;D

"A picture can tell a thousand words, but only a story has a moral"

You do realize that if you did have your camera you would have never caught it  ;D