Tim wrote to his friend Steve about the trip as follows: Steve: Attached are three pictures (ed. note: only two were received) of fish we took from Dave Lake the week of June 12 to 16. The biggest was 45 inches and weighed in at 20.5 pounds. As we were trolling through fairly shallow water I told my fishing companion (Bobby) I had snagged bottom and to back up the boat. While I waited for him to get it in reverse and take the pressure off my line I decided to go ahead and risk a 'rats nest' and released the reel. I did get a bit of a rat's nest, but wasn't worried about it since I thought I had the bottom! I fixed the tangle and as he backed the boat up I kept pressure on the line so he could see where to direct the boat to unhook the line. About half way back to the line and at about the same moment, we both exclaimed--"the bottom is moving!". By this time the fish was pretty tired since we'd apprently pulled him a fair piece before we got the boat in reverse. Bobby stopped the boat and got ready with our net. He was the first to see it surface and his gasp alarmed rather than thrilled me--he sounded like he'd seen a giant. As I got him to the boat he got up enough energy to make two separate runs and then we got the net under a part of him. He flipped out of the net the first time and finally with a bit more than half of him in the net (the back half would not fold around into the net), Bobby succeeded in getting him into the boat. As he fell into the bottom of the boat and out of the net, the lure let loose! That was a close call! You will note the 45 incher was caught on a rainy day and I had forgotten to bring my rain gear, so what appears to be a sheer green skirt is actually a trash bag used to keep my legs dry. We named the fish Brett (I caught him on a Green Bay Packer's lure) in a bay we had come to call the Bay of Hohhot. Hohhot is the capital of Inner Mongolia, where Bobby and I taught together in 1988-1989. Since we've both landed firmly back in North America we take an annual fishing trip and this was our second with Airdale and we'll be back. The other fish you see is a 31 inch Pike that was caught in deep water just off a small island (in a bay we had named the Bay of Despond--it had stumped us most of the week!). In truth, the 31 was more fun to catch because from minute one, I knew it was a good fish--Kind of sad to catch the fish of your life and think it was the bottom! We'll await our notification of winning the free trip with these excellent pictures.

To see Tim's story about fishing written when he was practicing
in Texas and published in the Texas Bar Journal, click here.