Was staying up in Bermuda Dunes (Indio) with my girlfriend for two weeks and been hitting the canal a couple hours for the last couple days. I sure missed the beach and the weather down in O.C. because it's too hot here. Anyway, my gf asked me to go to Walmart to buy some stuffs, I readily agreed because I've been wanting to go there to get some fluorocarbon line to get ready for my surf session on Saturday when we go back to O.C. After the shopping, with the Okuma Diemos combo still in my car with the LC FM110 (from Wingnute) :) attached, a voice told me to stop by the canal for a short session.

I heard some local said there are stripers in the canal and been hunting and skunking them for the past 3 days. I've never heard or seen stripers or other type of bass caught in the canal except catfish and carp though. But my addiction in the hobby kept telling me to keep up hope. :)

30 minutes passed, nada. I decided to stay for another 15 minutes with nothing until I told myself I'm gonna make 10 more casts then go home, and was counting 1,2,3 ...9, here goes my last cast. As I was reeling in the FM110, my lure passed a few shadow which I believe to be carp .. then when the lure came about 10 feet from me, I wasn't even looking at it at this time, because I was looking at my tackle box to see if I'm leaving anything on the ground and BAMMM .. my rod bent 180 degrees .. I look in the water and saw a shadow .. it's not silver, no stripe .. $h$$ ... not a stripe bass .. judging by the color it must be a carp, gotta reel him in anyway. The thing took off pulling my drag like a hot knife thru butter, I tighten my drag a little bit and started reeling in when he stopped running. About 20 feet from me, he started running again and bust off the water. My jaw dropped to the ground as soon as I saw that big fat mouth, "LMB", I've never caught one before, hell yeah, even better than a striper. Then he started diving down and went left, I had to once again loosen my drag a bit and let him run, then reeled him back in when he stop running. I was able to reel him in about 10 feet before he made another run to the right .. It took me a good 10-15 minutes to fight the monster and luckily I had on my reel 17lb line that I was able to kneel, hold the line and lift him up from the water into my reach because the water surface is at least 4-5 feet from where I stand, and I didn't want to drag him up the slope because I don't want to damage his slime coat. I let out a sign of relieve and realize I was sweating like someone just pour a bucket of water over me.

After I had him in my hand, use my other hand to open my backpack and DAMM .. forgot to bring my camera .. what am I gonna do, pretty sure I'm the only one who is crazy enough to stand in this 115 degree heat fishing now, my phone is an old old model, not sure I can get a good picture of this guy but I have no other choice. That's when I found out my legs and hands are still very shaky from the excitement. Couldn't get a good picture as I wanted because the dude is heavy, and I'm all shaky.
Too bad I didn't have a scale to find out how heavy is the dude, but he is huge. I did found the tape in my backpack and made some measurements though.

He is:
- 23.5" in length
- 17.5" in body circumference, approx 9" in diameter (where the biggest part of his body is)

I'm guessing by the feeling of the weight he must be at least 7-8 lbs or more, but I'm not sure because I've never caught a LMB before. Anyone who has experience might take a good guess??

After all the measurement, to the water he went. He was still strong as hell.

Before getting this fish I started to believe my Okuma Diemos combo jinxed me, has bad karma. After I bought it, I hooked a halibut on the first session and lost it within my reach. Then it skunked on me on multiple session before I hooked a striper and also lost it was I was bending down to pick it up. Then I caught my Personal Worst catfish on it, the thing was smaller than the size of my two fingers. Gotta love it after today because it caught me my first ever LMB and of course by its size, it will be my PB for a long long time.

That was the kind of fight a fish give me that keep my heart pumped all day long :)

This guys' mouth was so big I could fit 2 of my fists in there :)


Sorry for a lengthy report, I'm just too excited :)