NASHVILLE — It didn’t take long for Adrian David Payne to get over his frustration Wednesday with a ski boat that came way to close to his boat while he and his wife fished on Old Hickory Lake.
In the end, the reckless driver of that ski boat played a role in helping Payne land the catch of a lifetime — a monster paddlefish that was over six feet in length and weighed about 70 pounds.
Payne isn't sure exactly how much the fish weighed because it broke the scales he tried to use. Payne is 5-foot-11 and said the fish was at least four inches longer than him.
Paddlefish, with their prehistoric appearance, can grow up to 10 feet in length and live over 50 years.
Payne experienced a flurry of emotions while he and his wife Happy were casting lures and fishing for white bass near Lock 4 where Douglas Bend and Station Camp Creek meet on Old Hickory Lake.
Seemingly out of nowhere, a ski boat driven by a “jackass” as Payne put it on Facebook, came bearing down on the couple.
“I was thinking, 'Does he even see us?'" Payne said. "And at the last second he turns probably 20 yards or so from the bow of our boat."
The driver of the ski boat offered an apologetic smile that did not sit well with Payne.
"I thought, I'm going to cast just as far as I can right where he is just so he knows that I'm fishing here because I've been casting in this same area for 45 minutes," Payne said. "After I did I really thought I had hooked into his boat or maybe a tube rope he might have had out."
Payne thought he had latched onto the ski boat because his Strike King XXD lure took off at the same speed as the ski boat.
It wasn't until the ski boat headed in one direction and Payne's 12-pound Fluorocarbon test line went in another, that Payne realized it was something in the water that had taken his bait.
"Whatever it was started shaking its head and I thought, 'Oh my gosh, what have I gotten into?'" Payne said.
It turned out to be the huge paddlefish. It had been following the ski boat at blazing speed and now had Payne's lure in its mouth.
"It was just ripping line off of my reel," Payne said. "Me and my wife are avid big game hunters and we fish for stripers and I thought I had hooked into a big striper."
Payne dropped his trolling motor into the water and cranked it up to top speed to try and chase down the big fish. He estimated he had to go 300-400 yards to catch up to the fish, which had now taken all of his line.
The fish eventually took a deep dive and got under Payne's boat.
"That's when I got really nervous because he was going all the way around it, into my trolling motor, into my motor prop and I'm thinking at any second now he's just going to snap off," Payne said. "When he got directly underneath the boat I thought that he had swam into a tree because I was gaining no ground on him."
The fight had lasted about 15 minutes when Payne decided to bear down and do his best to get the fish to the surface.
"It was like trying to pull a truck up off the bottom," he said.
The tail came out of the water first and Payne realized it was not a striper, but still had no idea what kind of fish it was.
"To be honest, the tail looked like a shark," he said.
The fish eventually turned sideways revealing its enormous length.
"That's when me and my wife looked at each other and were going, 'What are we going to do now?'" Payne said. "I don't have a gaff on this boat and there was no way our net was big enough to put him in."
The couple finally managed to get the fish into the boat and after it broke their scales Payne flagged down a couple of other anglers and asked if they had scales he could use?
They did and then asked what he was trying to weigh? When Payne showed them the paddlefish they laughed and said their scales could not handle a fish that size either.
After snapping a couple of pictures Payne then released the fish back into the water.
"We never bring big fish home; they're just not good to eat," he said. "We release everything over 10 pounds striper-wise."