A fish story as big as the bass!

Beverly Rogers Brister has a fish story that’s even bigger than the bass she caught on Lake D’Arbonne Tuesday. And that makes it a good one. Her fish, shown above, was a 24-inch long 11.78 pound largemouth bass. Her story, shown below, is even bigger.

Beverly and her husband, Dwain, bought kayaks about a year ago, but she had never fished out of hers. Tuesday she was having a bad day because of some things that happened. She was feeling pretty low, so she just  said a modified version of the “Serenity Prayer”:

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and . . .  I’m just going fishing.”

The prayer and the fishing trip were both good choices.

She grabbed only two lures to take with her and got in the kayak. At the last minute, she decided to take the net, too, just in case. She paddled around in a big weed bed casting in some likely looking spots and had a couple of hits, but didn’t catch one. She was getting disheartened again and feeling bored when she noticed her husband, Dwain, out in the back yard planting tomato plants.

“I was about to quit and go help him, but I decided to make just a couple more casts,” she said.  “On the last one, I was fishing the bait across the weeds and all of a sudden the water exploded. He pulled me around for a minute and I yelled for Dwain to come watch me catch this big fish. By that time, he had a big wad of grass on the end of the line and my husband thought I was hung up or I was pranking him. I was just laughing because I had seen the fish. I don’t know why I was laughing so hard. About that time the big fish jumped and he saw it. I finally wrestled it into the dip net and got it up on the bank. I tell you, that fish took me for quite a ride in that kayak.

“When I finally got out on the bank with the fish, I still couldn’t stop laughing because I just couldn’t believe that fish was so huge. Dwain ran and got the scales and we weighed it. By that time I was shaking I was so excited. The biggest bass I had ever caught before that was five or six pounds and I thought it was a whopper.  God just smiled on me Tuesday. He showed me not to quit, no matter the circumstances.”

The Bristers kept the fish in a live net overnight deciding what to do with her. Wednesday morning, Beverly returned her blessing to the lake. You can see a video of it on her Facebook page.

Beverly has been having quite a time since landing the big fish. She was still laughing telling the story. She took a photo of it up to Taterbugs and told Waylon Wheelis she caught it on “that” bait she bought at his store. She walked in the back and came back and told him, “Yep, you’ve still got plenty of them.”

In case you are wondering, “that” bait was a plastic frog.  It’s a weedless bait that can be fished up in thick places where most lures can’t. It was also the first time she had ever fished with a frog. And in case you are wondering, that’s all the info on the bait you’ll get. Fishermen and fisherwomen are like that, you know. We’re lucky we got that much!

For those that may not know this couple, Beverly is from West Monroe and Dwain is from Bastrop.  Bastrop folks will remember Dwain’s dad, Homer Dean, who cut just about everybody’s hair in Morehouse Parish (including mine) at one time or another. Homer Dean would still be bent over double laughing and slapping himself on the knee over this fish catch!  Beverly and Dwain went on a fishing trip on Lake D’Arbonne for their first date years ago. After living and working in Missouri, they returned “home” recently to live on the lake.

I would tell you more, but Beverly had to leave.  She was headed back to her kayak to go fishing.