An Emotional Night of Fishing for MFCC Member Matt McGillveary

This is a guest report from MFCC member Matt Gilveary, who joined My Fishing Cape Cod during the spring of 2015. We are happy to have Matt onboard MFCC!

My uncle Matt and I had plans to head out at 11:30pm. Matt often needs some convincing to go fishing, so I read him every fishing report I could find to help motivate him to go.

​We were ready for whatever the night would throw at us. The moon was bright and we did not even need the flashlights which we had on our head.

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Unfortunately the place we planned on fishing was jammed with guys, so we moved a bit farther down the shoreline than expected.

On my first cast of the night my line breaks. I strip some line from the reel and make another cast, and the line breaks again. I wasn't sure what was going on but I continued fishing anyways.

4 hours later I get my first bite of the night, the big fish strips some line and boom!...the line snaps again.

Something strange was going on with my line/reel so I decided to grab my old reel from the car which was spooled with 20 pound test monofilament line.​

On my very next cast boom! I get a take from a big fish and the line is screaming. The fish took at least a hundred yards of line and I'm screaming "it's a tuna!"​

​I work this fish hard and my uncle Matt rushes over to help. I'm horsing this fish back in, thinking that the line is definitely not going to hold. Finally I see the fish on the surface and I was amazed at how big it was!

I hand my uncle the rod and I run into the water, jam my hand into the bass' gill and pull the fish out of the water.

Now whenever I go fishing I think of my other uncle...Uncle Michael...who died in the September 11th terrorist attacks. Uncle Mike taught me everything I know about fishing.

I held this fish above my head, under the moonlight and just started crying. It was the most amazing feeling in the world.​

Fishermen from hundreds of yards away rushed over to see what was going on. Nobody had seen a fish like this all night, and everyone was amazed-they couldn't believe it!

Even though we were out of bait we were so exhilarated that we decided to stay. Finally towards sunrise schools of bass began moving in. These were small fish but they were fun to watch breaking on the surface. ​

Around 6:30am my uncle Matt caught a fish. Thank god because he started complaining at 12:05am that there were no fish around! LOL

We caught just one keeper all night but man was it fun.

I'll never forget it.​