The old man and the paddlefish...

I left Friday after work to spend Sat, Sun, Mon bowhunting deer. ( no deer BTW) I knew I wasn't going to make it in time to get up a tree Friday so I decided to stop off and fish a dam on the Ohio River on my way out to our hunting property. I'm fishing a curly shad on a 1/4 ounce jighead trying for a sauger, walleye, hybrid striper etc., on a seven foot carrot stix with a pflueger arbor spooled with 15lb braid. I get there a bit after dark, so much the better for a sauger. Three casts in and the rod bends into the cork and then bucks like a rodeo bronc as line screams off the reel. Luckily a lot of braid fits on an arbor. Twenty minutes in and the fish shows no sign of tiring. I think the reel has like 10lbs max drag so I've got it tightened all the way down. No effect on the fish. It would take line easily whenever it wanted, I'm just lucky I guess it never decided to just leave, I couldn't have stopped it. After something like an hour it had settled into a slug fest. Besides having the drag tightened down as far as it would go when the fish started a long run I'd grab the line with my left hand and apply more pressure trying to put as much pressure on the fish as I could without breaking the line. I remember thinking of the Old Man and the Sea and the fish pulling his skiff out to sea. Finally the fish started to show slight signs of tiring. Occasionally I could feel the fish move as I pumped the rod to gain line. Still the fish would go on great runs but not quite as long each time as before. Then suddenly slack. It must have gotten off as I'd figured it would this whole time. But no, it had finally just had enough and came in worn out. As was I,  you don't hook too many fish that go over five feet long in Ohio. A few hurried pics in the fog and a bit of working back and forth in the water and the fish revived well enough. A great swoosh of it's tail and it was gone. The next morning I was sitting up the tree thinking boy my bicep is sore. Oh yeah,  from landing too big a fish on too light of tackle...