Raylen Ladner had been chasing her first bass for months, but when she finally caught one at Hiller Park in Biloxi, Mississippi, the fish came with three injuries and a trip to the emergency room.
Ladner, the weekend anchor for WLOX-TV’s “Good Morning Mississippi,” found the spot through the Fishbrain app after seeing that other local anglers were posting about catching bass there. The excited 25-year-old showed up at the park along Bayou Laporte with brand-new gear and an entire afternoon to catch her first bass. Four hours later, she had finally caught her bass, but not before cutting herself, tumbling down a rocky bank and stepping on a rusty piece of metal.
“I don’t think people realize just how accident-prone I really am,” Ladner said. “If there is a crack in the sidewalk, I’m going to trip over it.”
First Bass Trip
Ladner grew up a country girl, splitting time between Bay St. Louis and her dad’s farm in Poplarville, Mississippi. That’s where Ladner said the family kept horses on their land. But more importantly, that land had several catfish ponds.
“Growing up, I fished all the time but all I ever caught were catfish,” Landner said. When her television job moved her closer to the city, she went looking for something that would get her back to nature. “When I’m in the woods I feel so in tune with nature,” Ladner said. “Whenever you leave it, it feels like a part of you is missing.”
So she got back into fishing but continued her streak of catching catfish. Then bass became the main goal.
Ladner made a trip to Bayou Laporte, where she waded out onto a small sandbar in the bayou. As she was walking, her Crocs sank shin-deep into the sand and she couldn’t pull them out. She eventually pulled herself free and walked off the sandbar without her shoes. As she was walking she cut herself on a piece of glass.
“It wasn’t too bad but I was bleeding,” she said. Ladner moved on to a spot near the boat launch and started casting her Bandit 200 Series crankbait. About 100 years away a man called out to Ladner and informed her that she was working the lure all wrong.
She had been popping the bait straight up and down. He told her to hold the rod out to the side and sweep it instead. “He taught me how to retrieve the lure properly,” Ladner said. “And as soon as he did, I immediately hooked one.”
Ladner started reeling in the fish and when it neared she saw that it was a bass. “It never jumped at all,” she said. The fish stayed under and she reeled it in to within about 5 feet. That’s when her line popped. “I was freaking out,” she said. “I yelled—that bass stole my lure—I couldn’t believe it.”
The Injuries Pile Up
She tied on a new lure and figured that was the end of it. A few minutes later, she spotted the fish again. It was tangled in a stretch of old netting somebody had left in the water, her lure still hooked in its jaw, maybe 10 feet off the bank. Ladner thought to herself, “I can’t just leave this fish to just sit there and die—plus, I’d like to get my lure back.”
But getting to the fish meant going down the rocks. Ladner made it about halfway down before her feet went out from under her. “I busted my butt, like my feet went above my head,” she said. “I slipped down the rocks, and I fell so hard.”
She managed to protect her head on the way down. Everything else took the hit. Ladner came up bruised from her palm to her elbow, with cuts and scrapes across her legs and back. A jogger heard the fall, stopped on the path above her and asked twice whether she needed a ride to the hospital. Ladner told the woman she was fine, then made it down to the tangled bass. She worked the bass loose from the netting and unhooked it. Then Ladner got her lure back and released the fish.
The hits kept on coming as Ladner turned to climb back up the rocks. As she climbed, she stepped on a rusted piece of scrap metal that went through the bottom of her Croc and into her foot. “The nastiest, rustiest sheet of metal shot right through my Croc and into my foot,” Ladner said. “I’m like, oh my gosh!”
The night ended in the emergency room with a tetanus shot but the 25-year-old finally caught her first bass. Even with the injuries Ladner said the bass was worth it and she plans on going again soon.
“I’ve been chasing that first bass for a while now, and I finally caught one,” she said. “Now that I know the technique, I’m already planning my next fishing trip.”
