Richard McCoy wasn't about to try to outmuscle the fish — "horse it," as anglers say in fishing lingo.

"I thought I might have hooked the striped bass of my lifetime," said the Belmont fisherman. "And I didn't want to spend the rest of my years wondering what I'd lost because I got impatient and put too much pressure on 12-pound test line."

So McCoy, 59, a contractor who remodels homes and buildings, was content last weekend to inch whatever was on the other end of his line off the bottom of Watts Bar Reservoir in Tennessee.

The fish had hit a threadfin shad, one of dozens that McCoy traveled to High Rock Lake back home in North Carolina to catch for bait at Watts Bar.

The shad were kept alive and transported to southwestern Tennessee in an aerated "Super Tank."

"The fish ran off about 100 yards of line after I set the hook," said McCoy. read more