Fishing with out fish stories is like bread without butter. This story was told to me by guide trip customer Doug Meske as told to him by his father. Well here goes...
Back years ago on the banks of the Missouri River up near the quaint city of Bismarck, North Dakota – the capitol of the Flickertail State. The exact spot, I don’t know, but it was likely a slightly sloped shore line giving easy shore fishing opportunities, I do know from the stories account that there was a tree there. A good sized shade tree one with a bountiful canopy of leaves to cool the prairie heat and relax the senses down by the river, with fine tufts of grass to settle into.
Well back years ago catfish anglers used stone age gear, well at least this kid did, who’s name was somehow skipped from my version of this story, but he was likely of German or Scandinavian descent as so many of the NoDakers are, this kid employed a cord or a fine rope instead using monofilament line or Dacron line. For bait I don’t remember, but he likely had a lively fish, maybe a bullhead hooked and ready to be served up.
With an overhead twirl he let the bait fly into the water, and then he let time slip by.
Then suddenly line started to tighten. Slowly moving, and still moving, now moving faster away -something had his bait. A great pull of a hook set happened and the battle was on. Soon into the fight, a literal tug of war, hands started to slip and the cord slowly began to depart, slipping, leaving, and losing his grip.
Imagine the thoughts he was thinking, fighting to land a fish surely never seen before, and then feel a sinking doubt that he just might loose this fish?
But he is our guy and springing into action, heels dug in-sunk into the sand like driven tent stakes-with his body leaning back defying gravity, a final tug powered the rope back to the base of the tree, and he smartly wound the cord around the tree, one, twice, three times and tied a knot and ran as fast as possible to get help.
His flight brought him to the road to flag down the nearest driver.
The kid located a motorist and convinced them to stop and lend a hand. I imagine the motorist rather lazily got out of the car, but seeing the kid’s urgency the good Samaritan must have started running down towards the river with the boy, soon the driver caught up in the excitement - as this kid must be telling the truth - then seeing the rope tied to the tree with the other end anchored on a submarine, well the stranger must have joined the battle with great zeal.
The two actually battled the fish hard, and the behemoth gave way to dry land, beached out of water and now this fish that must have engulfed countless fish, was caught. Caught and recorded, sized enough to be the North Dakota record flathead catfish.
Keep Catchin’
Fishing with out fish stories is like bread without butter. This story was told to me by guide trip customer Doug Meske as told to him by his father. Well here goes...