15-5: Dad rewarded with monster bass

Big fish hits lure while he was casting son’s rod

If anyone ever deserved to catch a monster bass, Drew Hopper of Olive Branch is that fisherman.

A devoted father who put his 6-year-old son’s morning of fishing above his own, Hopper was rewarded with a 15-pound, 5-ounce bass on a warm winter morning last February.

That in itself is a story, but wait to read the rest of it.

“We were fishing in my uncle’s 25-acre lake in Pontotoc,” said Hopper. “It was me, my son Eli and a friend of mine and we were in a little john boat just moving around this lake.

“Well Eli wanted to fish like we were and you know how it is with a youngster, when he made his first cast and the hooks came flying by, really really close to your head … well, it only took once to know that wasn’t going to work.”

So Drew Hopper made an offer to little Eli Hopper.

“I told him, ‘son, why don’t you let me cast your rod for you and then you can reel it in,’” he said. “That’s what we did. I would cast his pole and while he’d reel it in, I’d make a cast or two with my rod and then we’d do it all over again.”

It was during one exchange of poles that the magical moment happened.

“I had just made a cast with my rod with a big ol’ jerk bait and it had just hit the water when I heard him say he was ready,” the dad said. “I tucked my rod under my left arm and reached back and got his rod and cast it. Right when I was handing it to him, it happened.

“I felt my rod jerk, I heard this loud splash. Then my friend was hollering at me — ‘Drew grab your rod. Set the hook. You got a big one!’”

Hopper said he turned around and tightened up on the slack and set the hook.

“I guess that big ol’ fish saw that bait sitting there and with all the movement I was doing with Eli’s rod and all, the lure was moving around a bit and he ate it,” Hopper said. “We had no idea how big it was, but we knew it was a big one. That lake is 25 acres but it has produced a lot of 10- and 11-pound fish before.

“I was reeling and the fish was fighting and it ended up right under the boat. I kept pulling it up and when it rolled over and we saw that big fat belly we started yelling. It was huge.”

The fight was over but the work was beginning.

“When we got it next to the boat, my friend and I we just both reached down and grabbed it by the gills, me on one side and him on the other, and we just slung it over onto the floor of the boat,” Hopper said. “Then I just dove down on top of it and smothered it to the floor.”

It was the biggest bass he’d ever seen and Hopper was taking no chances.

“I wasn’t about to let that fish jump out of the boat, no way,” he said. “So I just laid on it, hugging it tight until we got to the bank. Then when we were taking pictures and all that kind of stuff I moved way up on the bank away from the water so it couldn’t get away and get back in the water.”

They had the fish weighed and it produced 15 pounds, 5 ounces.

Then they went to the taxidermist, who recently completed the mount. It hangs on Hopper’s wall.

“I don’t pass by it a single day when I get home from work that I don’t stop, look at it and remember that morning on the lake,” he said.

His fiancée, Jennifer Mercer, reported the catch to Mississippi Sportsman in an e-mail.

“He is so proud of that fish, and that he caught it with Eli,” Mercer wrote. “I’m his fiancée and let me tell you, I think that fish is the most important thing in his life … LOL.”

I wonder if in this case LOL means something totally different.

Lot of Largemouth.