I've seen this fish and two others just as big for the past two years. Last spring ('10) I pulled her off the nest with a live 10" perch, only to have her go screaming through a submerged tree and bust me off.
This year....DIFFERENT STORY
Started looking for her at the beginning of May with no luck whatsoever. Finally, on May 27th, we found her in the exact same place as the prior year.
I threw everything at her and to no avail, not even a sniff. Found her male counterpart guarding the nest and quickly snatched him on a 5" pumpkinseed yammamoto. Beautiful fish 5-6lbs, but paled in comparison to his chunky mate.
My son catches a bluegill and runs it over to me. Not a sniff! My son catches a perch and I'm thinking this is it! No interest whatsoever. My son comes running over with a huge frog that he just caught on a small jig and I'm thinking it may be way too big
. The body alone was 6 inches and fully outstretched nearly 12". As soon as it hit the water I noticed some curiousity but once again, no luck, plus the frog keeps on swimming over to the submerged tree. Add three giant split shots and he's now floating like a bobber. Add 4 more and now he sinks down to the nest. GAME ON!!!!!
After an incredible battle, multiple jumps, I slid down into the water and hauled her over the submerged tree. No scale, no tape measure, but we are absolutely certain that she exceeded 10lbs and was close to 30". With a closed season, I released her with the hopes that I would see her again. She took off full of energy and soon returned to the nest 10 minutes later.
