The One that Almost Got Away......

So the craziest thing happened to me while fishing for peacocks down south.
As I was walking around this small pond with my 20 pound test leader, I saw a huge shadow swimming around the bank. I immediately knew what it was because I’ve been trying to catch it for years. I had just a light spinning tackle set up at the moment to target peacocks with live bait using a bobber so I grabbed a shiner and casted in front of its face. This massive freshwater snook didn’t think twice to strike but I had a bad knot so my leader came loose the second I set the hook. I watched this fish swim by me now with a leader and a bobber stuck to its mouth which made me feel really bad. My thought process after that was:  well it never really felt hooked so maybe it’ll strike again if I see it, especially now that I’ll know it’s location when I see the bobber. Literally a minute later I see the bobber near the other side of the pond and I casted a free line shiner at it once more with a 20 pound test leader that was the only one I had at the moment to rig. I saw my shiner get vacuumed into the snook’s mouth a second time but this time, it was game on. To my luck, this big girl didn’t fight as hard as the ones I catch in saltwater so I was able to successfully land it after a few runs and a classic jump that revealed its true size. 90% of the time when I’m fly fishing for snooks I’m using 40 pound test leader as anything lower than that makes me lose a lot of fish. The fact that I successfully landed and released the biggest snook of my life so far with a 20 pound test leader and in a little freshwater pond it’s beyond mind blowing to me. Experiences like this fuel my creativity and inspiration so a freshwater snook painting is in the near future!