Alaska Man Hooks a Pike, Flips His Rowboat, Loses the Rod, Steals a Pedal Boat, Finds the Rod—and Lands the Pike

When Sam Bartell appeared over to see his buddy Tomee Jones within the backside of the rowboat—his ankles up excessive over his head—he ought to have identified issues had been about to take a flip.

Bartell, who had a 30-plus-inch pike on the road, thought for a second that he may hold the boat right-side-up. However because the water came visiting the gunnel and he fell backward into the lake, shedding his doubled-over rod within the course of, he knew for positive that their stress-free day of pike fishing had simply become a goat rope.

The episode all started when Bartell noticed a monster pike swimming close to the dock. It was the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, and the 2 buddies had been with a gaggle of buddies at a home on Hourglass Lake close to Wasilla, Alaska. They weren’t precisely ready for an outing on the water, however noticing an outdated rowboat on the shore, Bartell figured they could as effectively give it a shot.

“We’re tremendous fired up at that time, and I’m like, ‘Let’s seize this crappy boat and let’s go,’” he tells Outside Life.

The 2 labored up and down the shoreline with out a chew, he explains, however after they got here again round and handed inside 20 yards of the dock, a bruiser of a pike exploded on his orange rooster tail.

“That is the largest pike I’ve ever seen!” Bartell yelled as he set the hook, unable to include his pleasure.

This caught everybody’s consideration on the dock—together with Bartell’s spouse, who had already began taking footage. Jones, in the meantime, tried turning round within the bow earlier than out of the blue discovering himself within the awkward place of trying up at his sandals. Then…kersplash.

The following factor Bartell knew, he was treading water empty-handed whereas Jones climbed into the swamped rowboat. The rod had slipped out of his palms.

“Tomee was sort of freaking out,” Bartell says. “He was actually fearful in regards to the big pike thrashing round beneath him. However as soon as he was all good, I appeared again on the dock and all the ladies had been simply laughing at us.”

So, the 2 anglers pulled the swamped rowboat again to shore and sat down on the dock for a breather. After about 10 minutes, although, Bartell nonetheless couldn’t get the fish out of his head. That’s when he noticed the pedal boat tied as much as the dock. And after commandeering the toy craft from the younger youngsters who had been there, the 2 set out once more, pedaling the awkward barge to the identical spot the place that they had dumped their first boat.

It wasn’t lengthy earlier than Jones in some way noticed the rod on the backside of the lake in about seven toes of water. Bartell had already taken one unplanned swim and had nothing to lose, so he went in after it. Diving down and grabbing maintain of the rod, he felt the telltale tug of a fish.

“And I’m like, ‘Dude! This factor continues to be on right here,” Bartell says.

Again within the pedal boat, the 2 stayed tight to the pike and towed it again to dock. With the fish lastly in-hand, Jones ran as much as the home to seize a chunk of firewood to make use of as a membership.

After filleting the 32-inch fish, the 2 drenched fishermen kicked again on the dock as soon as once more to recuperate from a soothing afternoon of pike swimming.