Personal Best Smallie

Hit the Meramec today. The last 3 weekends have been blown out, but before that, back in March, we were really putting a hurt on 'em, numbers-wise. Which usually isn't that case that early in the Spring, at least for me and the people I fish with. With the weather decent, the river level and flow back to near normal, my buddy and were chomping at the bit to see if they were still in their haunts and active.

Well, they weren't. We only caught 6 fish the entire day, but one of them was the freak below.

I've been Ozark Smallie fishing for about 10 years and have never caught anything close to this, nor have I personally ever seen a another fish this size. 5.51 lbs on the Rapala digital scale. Didn't have a way to measure her length, so I am not going to take a guess. Beautiful, healthy, fat fish. She didn't have a mark on her, except on the top of her tail. Not sure what that could have been from.

I could probably fish these rivers for the next 50 years and never catch another fish this big, so it was a very special moment.