Bristol Herald Courier reported 1st. After a busy week, the 50-year-old Bristol, Va. truck driver wanted to unwind with his son, Brian, and seek out some prime spots for an upcoming fishing tournament. What started out as an ordinary day of relaxation on April 10 soon turned memorable.
“We had been out there for about an hour without any luck, so I decided to try a heavy jig,” said Phillips, who was fishing in the Battery Hollow section of the lake on the Virginia line.
After throwing his bait into the water near a bank, Phillips noticed something unusual with his 12-pound test line.
“It never did hit the bottom,” Phillips said. “I thought something was wrong, so I eased back on the line.”
A classic struggle was about to unfold. It would challenge the patience, courage and strength of both Phillips and his son.
“The fish must have caught the bait in the air because the line just took off with me,” Phillips said. “Things got pretty exciting there for a while. Whatever it was, I knew it had to be big.”
For the next 30 minutes, the 250-pound Phillips struggled with a Tiger Muskie. The voracious and elusive monster is a hybrid between a northern pike and muskellunge.
“I didn’t know there was such a thing in that lake,” Phillips said. “I thought it was a bass at first, or maybe a catfish.”
When Phillips spotted the spooky head and razor-sharp teeth of the Tiger Muskie, he realized that he wasn’t dealing with a bass. Far from it.
“The head looked like an alligator,” Phillips said. “Every time my son and I would try to get the fish in the boat, it would try to bite us. And we didn’t have a big enough net to get the fish in our boat.”