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One of my favorite parts about fishing are sharing fishing stories with other anglers.  Fishermen have a reputation for stretching the truth at times, but more often than not, some of the most unfathomable events take place on the water! 

Today I'm going to share a "story" that happened last week to me and one of my clients.  We were fishing for kokanee salmon and just about had our limit when we got another hit on the downrigger.  I typically stack two rods on each downrigger and run a leadcore off of each side when we are permitted to run six rods.  Client number one grabbed the downrigger rod and started fighting a smaller lake trout.  About half way through the fight, a downrigger rod on the other side of the boat popped, but something was different about this fish.  When this rod popped out of the clip the rod bent over and line started flying off of the spool! 

I immediately grabbed the rod and kicked the electric trolling motor on high!  Despite going 2.5 mph after this fish, we were still losing line quickly and as I looked at the spool I realized we only had five wraps of line left!  I knew our only chance of landing this fish was to put my thumb the spool and hope the fish would stop.  Amazingly, this is exactly what happened!  Meanwhile, client number one had his fish up to the boat so we netted his fish and proceeded to reel up all the other lines as quickly as possible, still moving at 2.5 mph chasing the big fish!

Miraculously, we got all four of the other rods in without getting tangled and managed to get a comfortable amount of line back on the spool.  My light action kokanee rod was doubled over and all I could do is pray that my knots were good and that everything would hold up for what turned out to be a fifty minute battle!  Thank the good Lord, everything held up and thanks to my hand tied double snelled Eagle Claw Lazer hooks we landed the fish! 

But here's the kicker;  once we got a glimpse of the fish we saw why it took so long to land.  This twenty-two pound lake trout had swiped at our dodger and gotten hooked by our squid right in the front of the dorsal fin!  There were so many variables against us in this battle and somehow everything worked out in our favor.

After getting some pictures and releasing this fish, client number one was anxious for his turn at a big fish.  No more than thirty minutes later, the downrigger rod pops bends over and line starts ripping off!  Client number one is excited, but a little nervous on what to do.  He grabs the rod and sees the line peeling off quickly.  Amidst the chaos of us chasing the fish and trying to get the rods in, client number one looks away and manages to hit his rod on another rod in the downrigger and "SNAP"!   We all stared in disbelief as the broken line floated at the end of his rod.

It's amazing what can happen on the water and these events/stories are what excite us and keep us coming back for more!