Every year at ICAST we love talking with all of our Trokar Pros! The conversations usually start with business stuff, but it doesn't take long for all of us to start talking fishing. We wanted to share with you guys some of our favorite stories from our team of passionate Trokar Pros. This blog post is the story of Legendary angler Mr. Shaw Grigsby's PB (personal best) bass. Hope you enjoy this story as much as we do!
Mr. Shaw Grigsby tell us the story of your personal best bass.
All right. I'm fishing what was called a PPA a Professional Anglers Association tournament right here, we're in Orlando right over there on lake Toho, and I was struggling. I had three little little males in the boat, and I'm struggling. I run to this one area, and I'm fishing, and I cast my I think I was throwing a rodent strike king rodent, and I cast it into a hole, and anyway, I got hung on some braided line. Somebody had been shiner fishing and left like 40 yards of braid out there, and I hook it, and you know what happens with braid? It's gonna cut into any line that you have.
So I didn't want to break off the tungsten weight, Trokar hook, all that kind of stuff. So I trolling motored over real quick to get it off the braid, and as I was trolling motor, there was a hole in the grass and a little clump of lily pads and just a hole. And I see a big fish in there because it was spawning. I said that's a seven-pounder, but I just kept going. Just blew right through the hole. Got over there, got the braid, wadded it all up, put it in the boat, looped around, put the power pole down where I could make a cast of that hole, and retired because I, you know, tried to get it off the braid. So I retied and stood up and my guy, my partner, he wasn't fishing, he was just an observer, and he goes, what are you doing?
I said I'm fixing to catch a seven-pounder. He said, okay, so I fire into that hole and make a good cast perfect drop it into the hole, I drag it, and he goes, I go, oh yeah, I got him, I'm all excited, totally air ball just missed everything You know, I'm like, gum it's, I reel it in, re-rig it real quick fire back up. There it goes, I got her, I set the hook, and I catch about a four-pounder and I'm like, well, that's gotta be the mail because I didn't really see him. I said, so I know that fish I saw was seven, so it's got to be bigger than this. So I put him in the boat. So now I got four fish, so I retie because that's a pretty good fish catch. When I catch a good fish, I retie. So I retie. I'm ready now, fired back in there, and I pull it, and I'm just hoping that female that I saw was gonna eat it. So I pull it up, it goes, and I went here another airball because what they do in a nest situation they grab it and they blow it out and spit it and I'm like, so I said, well at least she's still there, you know? So now I'm shaking because I know this is a seven-pounder, I'm all excited. I'm really, really quick fire it back up, and I miscast. So there was a little clump of lily pads to the left, and I got in that, and I got hung, and I'm like, no. And, and I don't want it to blow everything up. I'm thinking I just messed up the whole deal, you know, it pops free I said good.
So, I stretched it really bad. So I but I pulled it all in, cut it off retired again because I stressed the line so bad. And I knew this seven-pounder was in there. I didn't want to make any mistakes. So I got back up, made a good cast. This time it hit that back edge, sank down. I picked it up and go, and this time I didn't set the hook. I just waited, she just pulled me down, and when she pulled me down, I set the hook, and the rod didn't move, it came up about like this and stopped and went, and the water's pretty clear, and I see this mouth. So like this, and I went oh my gosh, it's not a seven-pounder, you know, start cranking on this. And I felt like Mike, Iaconelli, I was screaming like a little girl running around the booths and I just, and I get up there, and I borrowed a net from Terry Segraves, local, great guy that lives right here in Kissimmee.
We don't use nets in any of our tournaments. So I borrowed one because the P. A You could use the net and it was a little net about this big and I bring this fish up, it won't go in the net, it's just huge, you know, and I get it close, it falls out because it tried to get in the net, it wrapped in some more grass. I go,
oh my gosh, I'm gonna lose it. It pulled all that grass up, and I get her back up, and this time I'm dragging her up, and she's doing a head nod, she's trying to go down, but I'm holding her head up, and she keeps doing that head nod. And so when she got up to the net and the head went down, it went down into the net.
I just kind of dropped the line and let her swim in the bottom of the net. And I picked the net up with two hands and put her in there; she weighed 13.6. I think I under judge a little bit. So it went from a seven-pounder to a 13-pounder. It was pretty nice
For more information on some of Shaw's Favorite Summertime Trokar Hooks and how he uses them click here.
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