The Mullins family from Richlands, Virginia, had spent three days at a lakeside cabin in Breaks Interstate Park in late July. The park is a popular bi-state vacation spot in the Appalachian Mountains straddling southeastern Kentucky and southwestern Virginia in the Jefferson National Forest. It’s located in the rolling green mountains a few miles east of Elkhorn City, Kentucky.
“We’d been there for three days and Wolfgang had only caught two bluegills with his brand new Zebco rod and reel,” his mom Patience Mullins told Wired2fish. “We were on the elevated balcony of the cabin watching him fish, teasing him about losing a big bass that hit his earthworm bait that morning.”
But Wolfgang rebaited and kept trying to catch the bass he’d not caught all through the day. Late that afternoon, as the family was packing up to leave their rental cabin, fate smiled on Wolfgang and the bass returned and took his bait.
“It was strong and went right for some shoreline bushes nearby,” said Wolfgang. “We’re sure it was the same bass I had that morning, and we all watched it take my bait before I started fighting it.”
The bass never jumped but powered into nearby shoreline brushy cover. Wolfgang never gave up and had to work for tense minutes to maneuver the fish out of the tangles and into open water where he could land it.
His stepfather Jack had thought the bass had broken off, and Wolfgang had his line just tangled in brush. But then the bass came out of the cover, so Jack raced down from the cabin to help Wolfgang, who somehow got the fish out of the tangles to shore.
“They didn’t have a net, and just as they got the fish up and onto the bank, the line broke,” explained Patience, who took a video of the action. “Wolfgang picked the bass up, we took a few photos, then he released it unharmed.
They didn’t measure or weigh the bass. But Jack fishes a lot for bass, and Patience says he thought Wolfgang’s fish may have weighed 7 pounds.
“I’ve only caught one other bass, a not-very-big smallmouth when I was younger,” said Wolfgang, an eighth-grade student. “That largemouth bass in the park is the biggest one I’ve ever seen or caught.
“I’m hooked on fishing now and can’t wait to try a reservoir close to home first chance I get.”
