The Star of our show!

Saturday, March 11 was starting out to be another great spring day in Florida. Even though the forecast called for a front to come through later, the morning sun was coming up in a clear sky and the wind had not indicated it had any intentions of blowing the gusts that were forecast.

For E. C. (Doodle-Bug) Dressler and his buddy Bill McConnell life was great. Another good day of fishing on Rodman was starting and the weather was cooperating. E.C. and Bill were in Rodman Reservoir's pool in the floating stump fields above Kirkpatrick Dam trolling shiners. Bill was running the trolling motor trying to navigate between the stumps and hydrilla clumps while E.C. controlled the trolled shiner. It wasn't too long before E.C. hooked the first bass of the day - a measly 9 pounder. Bill McConnell gave E.C. a bad time about the "small" fish. "Is that the best we can do?"

It didn't Take long to rig another shiner and start trolling again. As the boat worked its way through the stumps, E.C. felt a drag on the line like the shiner had gotten snagged in a big bunch of hydrilla. He tugged on the line a little and then gave a jerk. The water exploded and "jaws" emerged. The fight wasn't too hard or long before the bass was alongside and the net was deployed. Bill made a pass with the landing net and missed. (a good way to win a chance to swim home). The second pass with the net secured the big bass and it was hauled into the boat.

The big "sow" bass didn't get weighed until the next day. It took that long to find some scales, but when it was weighed, it weighed 17 pounds 2 ounces. (the Florida State Record was ,at that time, 17 pounds 2.7 ounces). If that big bass had eaten one more shiner it would have been a new record.

The fish was turned over to Glenn Lau of Ocala Florida, an award winning underwater fish cinematographer and producer of wildlife videos. Glenn has a large aquarium in which he keeps live big bass . The bass was on display at Miller's Marine in Ocala for the following Monday and Tuesday.

Not a bad day's fishing, even if it did start out with a Measly 9 pounder.

Unfortunately, The bass did not survive past a few weeks.  It was only six years old and it was hoped its genes could be preserved, but this was not to be.

12 Pound Gallery

11 Pound Gallery

10 Pound Gallery

Less Than 10 Pounds Gallery

UNKNOWN

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