A Barracuda Fish Larry’s 24 lb Prize Winner!

We fished this way for a while (possibly, 10 minutes). All of a sudden, Larry got a tremendous hit! A fish really took the lure with an immediate and furious run. Larry set the hook but there was no way that he was going to turn that fish! Enrico reversed the motor and we began to follow in the fish’s wake, allowing Larry to make some progress, reeling in line. When he finally got the fish closer to the boat, maybe 35 to 40 feet, the fish surfaced and, with one large red eye showing, he looked at us. He was huge and, I swear, he looked right at us, right in the eye! Apparently, he did not like what he saw because he immediately took off on another furious run and Larry lost all of the line that he previously had worked so hard to reel in, plus more. If Enrico had not turned the boat to follow, the fish might well have reached the end of the line, snapped it, and kept on going. However, between the team action of Enrico and Larry, we managed to follow that fish for a good portion of the lake. Eventually, the fish appeared to tire somewhat and Larry was able to, again, get him near the boat. That fish was still not finished, however, and he took off again on another good run. Then there was a lot of back and forth pumping and reeling action before Larry managed to finally bring it to the boat, completely spent, for the final time.

According to Enrico’s scale, the fish weighed in at just over 24 lbs! The world record is just shy of 27 lb. We wanted to make sure that there were no mistakes in the weight so we decided to call the other skiff over to verify it with the other guide’s scale. They were a good half of a mile away from us and it took a lot of shouting to just get their attention. It then took more time for them to realize that we wanted them to come to where we were. We learned later that they were on a fish. Finally, they headed our way. For all of this time Larry had not unhooked the fish and had been holding it in the water to keep it alive, since, we were releasing all Peacocks.

In a short time the other boat reached us and, using the other scale, we verified the fish’s weight at 24 lb. Larry had really done the job! He not only had caught enough to win the daily, $250.00 prize, but that fish was destined to be the largest fish of the group for the entire week and it, eventually, would win Larry the grand prize of $2,000.00!

We fished for a while longer and I managed to catch another 5½ lb. Peacock but, after Larry’s catch, it was all anti-climatic. We left in the early afternoon because we still had to drag the skiffs through the jungle and we were a long way from the lodge.

Possibly, the best ending that the day’s trip could have had, occurred when Barney made his final descent down the ladder. He had experienced a great day of fishing and had caught a lot of Peacocks. It had been quite a feat on his part just to be able to access the deep part of the jungle that we had been in, no less, to successfully fish it. You, also, had to admire the guides for the manner in which they had enabled him to do it. I have a photo of Barney looking straight at the camera just as his foot touched the beach after descending the ladder. The happy, triumphant, and grateful look on his face says it all! After that, we were all a happy crew as we debarked from that site.