Dargan Pond, Darlington, SC

The past few weeks I have barely been able to get in any fishing with all the temp jobs and job hunting. Well last night I said "screw it" and decided I was going fishing this morning.

There is a pond 10 miles from my house called Dargan Pond. Dargan is a bit of a special place though because access to fish it is given only Wednesday and Saturday, April 1st thru Sept 1st. The pond is about 50 acres and does on occasion give up some MONSTER bass. However, due to HEAVY pressure it gets when it is open it can be a tough place to fish. (I will go into more detail in the SC forum later)

Anyway, today was a pretty decent day as far as fishing on Dargan is concerned. I started the morning out with a buzzbait and soft jerkbaits but couldnt even get so much as a blow up. As the sky started to get pink from the rising sun I switched to a texas rigged pumpkinseed chartreuse Zoom U-Tail. I got a couple hits right away and missed em both. Off to my left I caught glimpse of a log that had been under water all this year so far. I was happy to see  that it was visible again and proceeded to chunk my bait up to it. As my bait started to settle to the bottom in the 6 foot water I noticed my line slightly jump and then speed up as if it were sinking down into 20 foot of water. I reared back, set the hook and it was on! She pulled HARD and right away I just KNEW I had hooked up with a double digit bass! Even though I have 20lb test braid on my rod, I keep my drag set (though prety tight) and sure enough it began singing. I immediately started to shake as I felt her head throbbing below. She ran up into the sunken  timber and all I could do was keep pressure on her as I motored closer to her. By now everyone in the area I was in had all eyes focused on my battle. Finally I worked her out of the timber and she raced off again, ripping drag and spinning my boat around. She came close to the surface about 20 feett from my boat and boiled the water. I could tell she had some serious size to her but I still couldnt get a clear view of her. I moved closer as I tightened up my drag and began to horse her towards me. Then she came towards the surface again and this time I got a very good view of her...

DAMNIT!

a 10 lb flathead catfish is what I had hooked into lol  :banghead:

My buddy Ronnie ran the net under her and in the boat she went. It took me a few minutes to decide whether she was getting eaten or she was being released. I ended up releasing her because I figured since she got me that excited and fought that great, she had definitely earned the right to swim another day. My only "oops" was that I forgot to snap a photo of her.

After that event, I went on to catch a few more bass in the 14" area and I ended the day with a 19" beauty that sucked my super fluke in (pictured below) This fish put up a great fight and ended up tangled up in the EXACT same piece of timber the flathead got me wound up in. I caught her from behind a cypress tree in its shade.
I had witnessed a decent fish slamming bait fish in the shade of the cypress and reached for my soft jerkbait rod. My first two casts produced no interest. On my 3rd cast I changed up my presentation and worked it fast as soon as it hit the water then killed the bait off as soon as it moved out of the cypress's shade. WHAM! She sucked it in and ran!

The guys in the boat next to me who watched me fight her and land her were trying to tell me she was an easy 8lbs but I know thats wrong. On my golden rule her tail hung off, making her about 19" long, so my guess is she was 4lbs or so.


Tattered Thumbs n Bigguns, Jared