NATCHEZ — Sarah Buseck didn’t need to fib and exaggerate her fishing story. She didn’t need to hold out her hands to justify ‘the one that got away’ — although she almost did. She has a real-life fish tale, complete with fish.

In many ways, Buseck’s tale is a classic one.

Girl comes home after moving away for a while, hasn’t fished in ages — four years to be exact — and is somehow able to reel in a fish larger than any of her father’s on that particular Saturday evening on a private lake in Adams County.

“I used to like to fish a lot with my dad and brothers when I was younger,” Sarah said. “We were supposed to be doing a family thing, but (my brothers) backed out on us so it ended up being just me and my dad.”

What started out as a somewhat of a letdown, sans brothers, ended up being not only a fishing trip to remember, but almost one for the record books.

“Since it’d been four years (since I’d last fished) I was a bit rusty,” Sarah said. “I had caught a fish and my dad was taking it off the line and gave me his pole.”

Apparently this, the swapping of fishing poles, was traditionally a no-no in the Buseck family.

“That goes back to my childhood,” Bob Buseck Sr. said. “We don’t share fishing polls, hunting rifles, nothing. Everyone has their own.”

Sarah agrees, although her recent success may lead to the Busecks rethinking their superstition.

“My dad tells me that if you use a pole and you have luck, you should always use that pole,” Sarah said. “That is why it was a big deal, because I used my dad’s pole. We don’t share poles.”

After swapping poles with her father, Sarah dropped her father’s line in the water.

“I just put the line in the water and was playing with it. I literally just dropped it in the water. It wasn’t in there more than two seconds,” Sarah said.

What resulted was Sarah catching a 17-inch white perch that weighed in at 3-pounds, 3-ounces.

“I thought I had got caught on something,” Sarah said. “When I pulled it in (Bob Sr.) said ‘that’s one of the biggest white perch I’ve ever seen.’

“I was like ‘oh my gosh, I have a fish!’ I was freaking out and my dad said to just calm down and bring it in the boat,” Sarah said.

“She was ecstatic. I was pretty excited, but she was ecstatic,” Bob Sr. said. She likely turned the boat over. When we got (the fish) in close, we leaned over — I was leaning over to net it, and she was pulling it in — and we tipped over so much that it let water in the boat.”

Despite pleas to have the catch mounted and memorialized, Sarah wasn’t having any of it. Because she had put the fish through all the pain of catching it, she said, she just wanted to eat it.

“We took a bunch of pictures and debated what to do with it, but I was like, ‘no way — let’s eat it.’”

When news of her catch reached her brothers, Bob Jr. and Justin, they were so upset they insisted on going back the next day.

“They were a little jealous,” Bob Sr. admitted.