River Monsters in Gilbert, Arizona?

Ok, so the title is a little bit misleading, but it was a monster to me.

I recently moved to Gilbert, AZ and being the avid fisherman that I am, I am always on the lookout for places to fish.

There is a pond on the way to my girlfriend's work that I drive by every day. It is a rather large runoff pond behind a golf course. One day I decided I would go down and investigate.

As I approached the pond, immediately I heard a giant splash as something rather large in the water jetted away from the bank. It scared me at first as I wasn't sure exactly what it was. I took a couple more steps and then another giant wake rushed away from the shore out into the middle of the pond.

At this time my shock turned to excitement. I realized these were fish, and rather large fish at that! So I did what any red blooded American would do. I immediately drove home, got my fishing poles, my stepson, and headed off to Walmart to buy some worms.

I was gonna catch me a monster!

When I got back to the pond I really didn't know what kind of fish were in there so I setup one pole with my favorite Bass Spinner bait. I have slayed bass with this lucky charm in multiple states across the US.

The second pole I rigged with a bobber and a worm figuring there might be some carp or catfish in there that would bite a worm. I setup my stepson with the same. So, we had 3 poles in total. Upping our chances of catching one of these monsters.

After almost an hour of sitting there watching my bobber and casting my spinner in every direction I could think of without so much as a bite. I decided whatever fish were in there didn't really like what I had to offer. That and the fact that the stepson kept bugging me that he was getting bored meant it was time to do something else.

So...

I decided we would go exploring around the pond and see what kind of wildlife might be in there. I set up 2 poles with bobbers and worms and decided I would prop them up against a bucket just to at least give us a chance to catch something while we explored the area around the pond.

After we had walked around the entire pond and found a couple interesting critters... including a nice looking water turtle that my step son, Damian, caught and insisted we take home (which of course, we did), we got back to our fishing poles only to notice that both of them were no longer standing up against the bucket like I had left them.

Did we have something or did they just fall over?

I picked up the first one and sure enough there was a fish on it! I could feel it start to fight right away. It didn't feel that large but I reeled it in excitedly and this is what was on the other end:

It was a medium sized carp. Not the monster I was hoping for, and a trash fish at that... but still fun to catch... I threw it back in the water and immediately grabbed the other pole to see what was on the end of it. I started to reel... but didn't feel anything. So, I reeled a little more and then I felt a slight tug. Then the slight tug turned into an all out yank as the fish darted hard out to the middle of the pond.

I reeled hard and knew that this fish was much bigger than the previous one I just pulled in. After what seemed like 10 minutes of fighting the lunker... this showed up on the end of my line:

A bass! I couldn't believe it... a bass on a bobber and a worm! I had never caught a bass on a bobber and worm before and this was by far my largest bass ever. It weighed in at just under 8 lbs. A true lunker in my eyes!

Just about that time the gf called and it was time for us to head home for dinner.

Ever since that day I have been dreaming about my next chance to get back to that little run off pond and catch my next monster. :)

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