For many moms, Mother’s Day is filled with cards, flowers, and a nice brunch – but for Dave Field and his 72-year-old mother Ann Field from South Carolina, the special day was spent on the water in a small flat-bottom boat making memories. The pair spent Sunday afternoon fishing a small neighborhood pond, and Mom came away with the biggest largemouth of her life.
Dave rigged a weightless white Zoom Super Fluke on a red Gamakatsu offset EWG hook tied to 8-pound monofilament for his mom. It was a simple setup, but it turned out to be the perfect rig for the day. She hooked the beefiest bass they had ever seen out of that pond: an 8-pound, 14-ounce largemouth. What followed was a fight Dave called “an absolute rodeo.”
“She had the drag locked down so hard, and the fish was still pulling out line so easily, we had to treat it like we were marlin fishing,” Dave tells Outdoor Life. “We had to use the trolling motor to go after the fish.”
After a perfect hook set that secured the red hook squarely in the corner of the fish’s mouth, Ann handled the entire battle herself. The bass jumped a few times, scraped the line along the edge of the boat, and put up a serious fight.
Ann said fighting that fish made her like she’d been through a workout that left her muscles sore and aching, but she didn’t give up until the fish was in the boat.
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While Mom’s bass was certainly impressive, the afternoon was about more than fishing. As they snapped a few photos, Dave knew it was a memory they’d treasure for years. He enjoyed watching his mom light up more than he enjoyed catching fish.
“She would have to look straight down to see cloud nine,” Dave says. “Her best fishing day ever, and it came on Mother’s Day. It was a picture-perfect afternoon.”