Editor’s Note: After compiling some of the best fish stories from our female fishing fans over the last month or so, FLWOutdoors.com is finally ready to share them with the public. For the next several weeks, we’ll feature a different submission every week, with articles being posted on Mondays. To be sure, the stories submitted by our readers have been most impressive as well – ranging from the truly humorous to the utterly heartbreaking. We hope you’ll enjoy them as much as we did. And hopefully, as more and more women get involved in the wonderful sport of fishing, we’ll get to read and hear about many more stories from our female fans in the future. Enjoy.
Jo Anne Dudley
Lynchburg, Va.
Competitive spirit runs through Dudley family
Long before FLW Tour David Dudley was even thought about, his dad, James, and I rented a house overlooking a lake. We were newlyweds at the time, and James was trying his best to teach me about bass fishing. I had only had some previous experience in saltwater fishing. I want you to realize that David’s competitive spirit probably comes as much from me as from his dad, perhaps even more.
We would take a canoe out on the lake and, many times, fish in the evening until dark when the weather was good. After a while we started casually seeing who could catch the most fish. Casual became obsession with me to beat my husband. I wanted to win in the worst way.
This one evening I was really fired up. I cast my lure and I wasn’t too accurate, which is to say it went over a big log near the dam. So as I started to bring the lure up to hop it over the log, a bass came up and swallowed my lure. Out of instinct I jerked and, forgetting the log, I started to reel this fish in.
When I realized I couldn’t get the fish over the log, I paused. It was at that time that I felt the pain of having my very long hair reeled up into the handle of the fishing reel, tangled and very knotted. So, there I was with a bass hooked over a log and my hair tangled up to my right ear.
We spent the next minutes trying to save and not cut my hair out of the fishing reel. I didn’t land the fish, but managed to save most of my hair. I also lost. From then on, I was very careful not to set the hook anywhere near my hair.
Oh, believe me, I have won a few times fishing against my husband!