Patient pursuit leads to monster prize

"It was a heckuva fish. I'll tell you that much," Bobby Olivas said. "You know, I've seen pictures of big fish, but to see it in person was kind of a wow!"

Though I have seen only a photo of the fish, which is making its way through fishing cyberspace, I would have to agree with Olivas' description.

Wow!

Then again, any freshwater game fish that tops the 50-pound mark is going to generate some excitement.

Did I say wow?

Olivas was talking about the 52-pound, 15-ounce striped bass his nephew, 20-year-old Nick Olivas, caught while competing in the Stripe-R-Rama XX fishing tournament at Lake Mead. Based out of South Cove, the tournament began at 7 p.m. June 11 and ended the next day at 7 a.m. Joining Nick was his father, Rick.

Fresh off its victory in another tournament two weeks before, Team Olivas went right to work. Since the Kingman, Ariz., residents fish Lake Mead as often as possible, they knew right where to go, a large flat submerged in about 40 feet of water. Nick started by trolling a 6-inch-deep diving crank bait. Forty-five minutes later, Nick felt the forward momentum of his bait come to a stop. Then his fishing life changed forever.

"I actually thought I was snagged, and my dad turned the boat around, but my line was still going out as we turned around and started going back toward it," Nick said. "That's when I knew it was a fish, and it was shooting a little deep.

"So we had to follow it with the boat; otherwise, it would have just run my line off my reel. We actually had to chase it with the boat a little bit just to get a little bit of line back on my reel."

Nick was using a rod he normally uses for largemouth bass fishing and was concerned the fish would completely spool the reel and break off. So the duo kept following the fish until it showed signs of fatigue.

"After about 10 minutes or so, he started getting a little tired, you could tell, and we actually started getting him," Nick said. "As soon as we saw him, and he saw the boat, he just buzzed my line right back out again -- like it was nothing. So here we go again. We're chasing him in the boat again, and I'm trying to keep as much line on my reel as I can but making sure I don't bust it."

The battle waged another six or seven minutes, but as Nick reeled the fish in close to the boat again, it made yet another run. And the Olivas crew followed.

"We followed him with the boat again," Nick said. "I got a little more line back on my reel, fought him for a while, and five or 10 minutes later he basically just gave up and practically floated into the boat. You could tell he was done."

It took Nick and his dad to lift the fish into the boat, where they placed it in a cooler so they could continue fishing. They figured they would need to catch a few more fish to win the tournament, and that's what they did, smashing the tournament record with a 40-fish bag weighing in at 115 pounds.

The Lake Mead-record striped bass weighed 52 pounds, 8 ounces, caught by Carson Romans on June 12, 1982, almost 29 years ago to the day before Nick caught his Lake Mead trophy. Unfortunately for Nick, he was unable to get an official weight on his fish, which certainly stood an excellent chance of being named the lake-record striper. But he did get a $500 bonus for bagging the largest fish of the tournament.

Freelance writer Doug Nielsen is a conservation educator for the Nevada Department of Wildlife. His "In the Outdoors" column, published Thursday in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, is not affiliated with or endorsed by the NDOW. Any opinions he states in his column are his own. He can be reached at intheoutdoorslv@gmail.com.