"It crossed my mind several times that he might pull me over," said Marshfield kayak angler Jordan Isaacs.
When it hit his lure, kayak angler Jordan Isaacs thought the big striped bass at the end of the line might actually capsize his 11.5-foot boat.
"It about jerked the rod out of my hand," Isaacs recalled of that July 22 night. "It crossed my mind several times that he might pull me over. I had a friend on the bank who saw me take off downstream. He said he could see my lights going down the river."
Fishing in the deep hole below the Ozark Beach dam (formerly known as Powersite dam), Isaacs had already caught two striped bass in the 10- to 12-pound range. About 10:30 p.m. he cast his 12-inch Storm Kickin' Minnow lure and let it sink about 7 feet deep.
The Marshfield angler was using a Lew's baitcasting reel filled with 175 yards of 20-pound test line. The striper inhaled the lure and took off on a massive run, pulling Isaacs' kayak downstream into Bull Shoals Lake.
The fish was tearing line off the reel so fast, Isaacs said he was afraid it would take it all.
"There were about 10 wraps left on the spool so I pulled up the anchor and let him pull me," he said. "It ran four or five times, and I'd gain back on him. It finally stopped running and hung out on the bottom. You wouldn't think a fish could pull that hard."
He worked the striper up from the deep and was stunned by its size when it breached the surface.
"I tried to pull it into the boat, but it was so big I didn't know what to do," he said. "I finally got a leg under it and held it by the mouth so I could pull him in. I got my legs wrapped around him, with its head up against my chest like a puppy dog. It was a long paddle back!"
On shore, Isaacs said the fish weighed 62 pounds — just a few shy of the Missouri striper record of 65 pounds, 14 ounces caught in 2015 by Lawrence Dillman, also in Bull Shoals Lake.
He and a friend eventually got the fish to the conservation department's Shepherd of the Hills Hatchery in Branson, which has a set of certified scales. The delay cost a few pounds; the striper came in at 58 pounds even.
The fish was 48 inches long, with a girth of 32.5 inches, according to Isaacs.
It's not a Missouri record, but Isaacs did earn a certificate from kayakfishing.com as the world record striper caught from a kayak. The fish is still in his freezer, awaiting a taxidermist's handiwork so Isaacs can display it on his wall.
"I've been fishing my whole life, ever since I was old enough to walk," said Isaacs, 30. "I've been kayak fishing competitively for two years now."
Striped bass were accidentally introduced into Bull Shoals Lake in 1998, a shipment of young fish that were supposed to go to nearby Norfork Lake. Stripers thrived in Bull Shoals, which has a hefty population of shad that stripers eagerly devour.
Twenty years later, those original transplants are now huge, though reaching the end of their lifespans.
Isaacs said he knows there are bigger stripers than his 58-pounder still in the lake. Maybe even a record fish.
"I'm going to beat it next year," he predicted.
The all-time striper record, according to the International Game Fish Association, is held by a Connecticut angler, who landed an 81-pound, 14-ounce fish from the Atlantic Ocean in 2011.