St Mary's Lake for some bass fishing

Type: Nontidal
Region: Southern
Location: St. Mary's Lake

It was a scorcher last Saturday but the kids would not let me forget that I promised to take them to St Mary's Lake for some bass fishing. We arived at 3:00 pm and fished off the dock for a little while with no luck. We moved to another spot along a narrow, sandy point jutting out into the lake and I spent the next several minutes tying on lures and and fixing tangles for the kids. Finally, at about 4:15 I got a chance to cast a 6" senko near a ledge next to some vegetation and on the second cast of the day I pulled in a 26" behemoth. I caught this fish on 8lb test monofiliment and this fish tested every ounce of it. During the fight, it jumped out of the water and the kids were yelling "holy cow dad look at that fish". I landed it after a few minutes and my daughter took the following pictures. Afterwards, I did the unthinkable and I let it go unharmed, even though I felt it was very close to the exisitng non-tidal record weight. We watched it swim away gracefully; hopefully to enrich the life of some other lucky angler. My digital scale is the only thing that let me down that day but I did get a measurement of 26 inches. My name is Ray Shaw and my hometown is St. Mary's County, Lexington Park and my daughter Sierra Shaw gets the credit for the photos.