I was hooked up with a heavy fish, the weather was humid, the boat rocked side to side, my rod tip bent downwards, almost touch the water, my heart was pounding, thinking it was just another regular, decent sized bass, but as the texture of the fish appeared to the surface of the river, it became clear to what had taken my bait, I stuttered with words to say but Dakota had said them for me that would never be forgotten in my entire life,

“OHH, YOU GOT TWO ON AT ONCE!!!”

It started off as a calm, beautiful, humid sunny day in Portage, WI. My older cousin (Dakota) and I had just woken up from a relax deep sleep, and had made the choice we were going to head out on the Wisconsin River (right off the banks of our cabin) and take some casts.

“Hey Dakota?”

I asked,

“What?” he replied

“What time do you want to head out?” I asked,

“Just get all your stuff ready, and will head out in a little bit.”

“Ok.”

After I had made sure I had my gear set and ready go, Dakota and I stayed at the cabin for what seemed like days to me, getting the boat at the launch, and putting the motor on before we set off on the river.

“Dakota lets go. The fish aren’t going to catch themselves,”

“I know. I’m coming”

Dakota had gotten the boat started up, and we headed down stream to a secret spot, where big bass like to hangout. Dakota took one cast and five seconds later ,with his top water lure, he said,

“I got one,”

“Really,” I asked

“Yep,” Dakota replied

It didn’t take long for Dakota to reel in the 17 inch smallmouth bass.

“Nice,” I said

I decided to cast right in the same spot where Dakota had hooked his fish, so I did. and it wasn’t luck for Dakota because I was now hooked up to a bigger fish.

“Dakota, I got one.”

“Alright.”

I had reeled in 19 inch smally, a nickname for smallmouth bass, and we kept on catching, cast after cast, then bass after bass. We were hooking plenty of decent size bass even largemouth - which was the surprising thing because you never see them in the river. The 15 minutes into casting, the biting started to get slow.

“Maybe we fished all the bass out here,” Dakota said

“Possibly,” I replied

Me and Dakota persevered and kept taking casts, then it hit, SPLASH!!

Some kind of fish smashed the lure, I was hooked up once again with a heavy fish, thinking it was just another decent size bass, but as the color of the fish appeared to the surface of the river, Dakota yelled the words that would never be forgotten in my life, “OHH, YOU GOT TWO ON AT ONCE!!!,”

I got first got a glimpse of the two bass, I almost passed out into the warm, deep, dark river. One bass had most of the lure in its mouth while the other bass just had end of the lure by hook. I stayed calm, and started reeling in as much line as I could, I took control over both fish and pulled them to the boat, I could barely breath I was so nervous. As I reeled in more and more line, I realized that I wasn’t reeling anything, the weight of two bass had put so much pressure on the line, I can no longer reel. It was only a matter of time before the line snapped!

I had one option, I have to pull the two heavy fish above the surface of the river, and literally drag them across the water to the boat. As I did so, I could tell the line was getting weaker by the second, I pulled with all my weight hanging at the tip of the boat until finally I reach success.Dakota reach as far out as he could and netted both bass and settled both of them gently in the boat.When I was  reeling in both those two basses it had felt like reeling in a bowling ball.

“OWH.” As I grabbed the line, both bass had flopped off the lure, injecting the hooks into my skin!

“I don’t care, I just caught two bass at once.”

After getting both bass secured in my hands, we had taken video, and picture of the two 17 inch largemouth bass, and gently released them back to the river.

The feeling of catching the two bass, had brang joy my life that day. I can’t tell you how elated it was to hook two fish at once, Not a lot of people in the world have done so with one and lure, hook and reel in two 17 inch bass on the Wisconsin River. But what I can tell you, is that life is full of surprises like this one and on that day the unexpected had risen from the depths of the deep dark steam.