In January, me and my dad took a trip to lake falcon in zapata, texas to fish for largemouth. we live in alabama and go to texas 4 times a year to fish. well this was our first trip to falcon and i was pretty excited. i was only 14 at the time but already won 11 tournaments so i was at the top of my game. so anyway we got there after a 17 hour drive and we got ready and headed out to fish. we caught probably 30 that day but they were in that stage of moving on to the beds. the water was still a little chilly. so we fished the next day and caught around  50 the biggest being 7. well i knew it wasn't gonna take much of a weather change to get all the big mommas on the beds. i found out a warm front was coming so i went and bought a lake map and examined it for an hour or two and narrowed some spots down. as the weatherman predicted, it warmed up 10 degrees the next day which made it absolutely PERFECT. it was like a light switch... we made one run through a small pocket and caught 30 or so right off the bat.   so we kept fishin and around 3 oclock my dad decided to take a nap in the back of the boat. so i decided to move to a small pocket right off a road bed. immediately i started catching fish. i was mostly sight fishing.  i worked down that bank for a while and came to a tree that was laying down in the water. i happened to see a large shape under the water right where the tree met the bank. i looked at it and thought " Damn thats a big log!". Just then it moved and i thought oh my god thats a pig. i picked my rod with a YUM dinger on it. i flipped over there... she looked at it but backed off. i flipped over there again she immediately opened her gills and sucked the bait in. she turned to swim and i let her have it. the hook set deep into her mouth and the fight was on. i probably fought her for a good 6 minutes. i didn't want to wake my dad cause i wanted to surprise him. she finally wore out and i got on my stomach to reach in and lip her. i got a good grip on her and said "hey dad look at this" he sat up and said "what?". just then i pulled that fish out of the lake and we just stared and stared until our eyes hurt. she was the fish of a lifetime. we immediately started taking pictures. she was an amazing fish. right before it was time to let her go, we weighed her on an IFGA certified scale. she was 13 pounds 9 ounces. a true monster. i released her and just sat there and smiled as she swam back to her nest. there is nothing like successfully catching and releasing a fish that big.  i'm only 14 years old but i'm sure i'll never catch a fish like that again. but that feeling of having a successful battle like that is better than climbing the worlds largest mountain . i hope you all get experience that someday. its just amazing... CATCH AND RELEASE ALL THE WAY!!!!