Great idea for a topic:

Here goes....The below picture might look familiar if you've seen my photo gallery. This picture however, is a taken at the right moment of complete, utter stoke about the situation. The smile on my face is pretty much as happy as I can get.

Background: I caught this fish from lake Hodges in August 1999. At the time, I was going to school in San Luis Obispo, and decided to get back home for a few days of fishing and surfing. My friend Cameron took me out to lake Hodges, where he'd been whacking them recently. We caught about 40 solid 2-4 pounders all day off the SAME rockpile. It was getting toward the evening, and I set the hook and man, I just got my butt kicked. Line was getting peeled off and this fish took me for a ride. I was seriously lucky to boat this thing. Cameron stoked me by taking a bunch of pictures and just letting me enjoy the moment.

When I got back to SLO, I swung by my friend Rob Belloni's place, and showed him the pics. Rob was like, "whoa dude, what's it like to catch an 11 pounder?" If that doesn't beat all!!! I actually had a bigger fish than Rob Belloni! That didn't last long, and now I'm constantly pinging Rob for help and feedback on how to better catch big fish. Overall, this pic is probably my one favorite....the fact that I was in college at SLO and came home on a fluke and caught her out of Hodges, from my buddy Cameron's boat, and then having Belloni be impressed by the fish----shoots. That is STILL my big fish!






http://www.calfishing.com/dc/user_files/4113-joyfullhodges11.jpg