Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
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THE LAKE — We've all known an outdoor sportsman that has told a tall tale or two (or 20).
Usually, it's not about telling a lie or being malicious in any way. Instead, it's about how to tell a good story that stretches the truth until the moment just before that one fiber of truth is about to break. They want to draw you in and watch your face as they tell you something that you know can't be true, but it feels so true and amazing in the storytelling.
One popular beginning of an outdoor tall tale is, "I once caught a fish this big," which is accompanied by a hand gesture that shows the size of the fish, which always seems too big. It's such a popular beginning, that it's tough for even the best storyteller to get people to suspend their disbelief for even one moment for that type of tall tale.
The downside to that is, what if you do have a big fish story that is actually true?
The boy in this video sure has a story to tell when he grows up, and that story is that he once caught a fish as big as he is. Don't believe it? Good thing there's video proof.
In this video, six-year-old Drayden Nelson is doing a little subsistence ice fishing with his family in Alaska. He hooks a fish, and through his excitement we know without being told that it is his first catch.
"Mom, got one!" he yells before putting in much effort to pull the fish in. (You always know it's extra special and exciting when you have to tell mom first.)
He pulls and pulls, but a family member has to help him with the final pull to get the whopper out of the water. What pops out of the ice hole is a big, fat fish — a very big, fat fish when compared to a growing boy.
The video description says that when they measured the fish, it was 46 inches long, the exact height of Drayden. He maybe be the only person in the world that we can believe that he once caught a fish as big as he is.
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