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It all happened so fast ! We were trolling for springs in our favorite local spot, and it was unusually slow. We pounded this spot hard for 3 hours, throwing back a dinker and I lost a nice fish, probably close to 20lbs. I had to horse him in because there was so many seals in the area, and lost him. An hour after that with no luck we decided to fast troll about a km to another shelf we fish as plan B usually.
It was funny cuz we were talking about how when the big ones roll in in the summer and doing this, we always seem to hook into a bruiser on the outside rod after tacking. Well, 15 minutes later we were in 250 feet of water, our riggers were at 225, we were both fishing a flasher and an anonymous hook and we had another rod 20 feet up with a spoon and no flasher. We hit a pretty nasty tide line and had all sorts of crap runnin' down our lines so as we were about 200 yards from the shelf we wanted to fish, we started bringing up our gear to check it, top rods first obviously.
As soon as my buddy tripped the release and a couple rotations of the reel, his line went heavy. He's like "yeah theres a shit load of salad on this one" And then the "salad" shook its head, and turned and ripped out about 30 yards of line and started coming back, fast. It was coming up too. When he caught up to it it made easily a 100 yard run and then sulked for a minute, head shaking and then another 50-60 yard run. We were both bug eyed. The springs shouldnt be over 20 lbs yet, but this one easily was. He had caught a 32 on the same rod and reel last year and it was WAY smaller than this. YES way smaller.
I was reeling all the rods and reels up, trying to get the riggers up too and he was like damn I'm into my backing we have to chase this thing. SO he tunred to crank the wheel over, the rod was braced against the length of his forearm and his hand was firmly gripping the forebutt (like we all do)and the fish decided to take off again, bending the rod 3/4 tip to butt and then straightening his arm and ripped it right out of his hand ! A 1.5 second pause and he superman dove off the stern into the ocean trying to grab his rod, he said he felt the very butt of it between his ring finger and middle finger and lost it, as it went down. Well by now I'm probably 50 yards away from him and he's yelling pick me up, so I come around and pull him up on the deck (we are in a 22 foot campion, grady white style boat) and he's just wired with adrenaline. Neither of us realize what has just happened and look like we saw ghosts. I decided to drop both riggers to bottom and motor in the direction the rod went and zig zagged, hoping to at least get the rod and reel back, as it was a $500 MR2 and a nice lamiglass rod. It never worked. At first he was just choked, but afterwards all he wanted was to have had a glimpse of that fish ! Now, we've both fished a long time and have had plenty of fish over 30 pounds and he KNOWS this is by far the biggest salmon he's ever hooked. Including all the trips to Nootka, bamfield etc.
All I had to say was there are salmon caught upwards of 90 pounds and before they get that big they have to be 40,50,60 so it's anybodys guess how big it was. Our first summer run spring arrived at the hatchery April.6, so that's obviously what it was, but who knows with the temperature and climate changes now-a-days, it's anybodys guess. Curiousity killed the cat but it keeps us going out there time and time again and man am I happy we live where we do ! We're goin out first light tomorrow, he wants revenge. ( Already went and replaced the rod and reel lol)
It was funny cuz we were talking about how when the big ones roll in in the summer and doing this, we always seem to hook into a bruiser on the outside rod after tacking. Well, 15 minutes later we were in 250 feet of water, our riggers were at 225, we were both fishing a flasher and an anonymous hook and we had another rod 20 feet up with a spoon and no flasher. We hit a pretty nasty tide line and had all sorts of crap runnin' down our lines so as we were about 200 yards from the shelf we wanted to fish, we started bringing up our gear to check it, top rods first obviously.
As soon as my buddy tripped the release and a couple rotations of the reel, his line went heavy. He's like "yeah theres a shit load of salad on this one" And then the "salad" shook its head, and turned and ripped out about 30 yards of line and started coming back, fast. It was coming up too. When he caught up to it it made easily a 100 yard run and then sulked for a minute, head shaking and then another 50-60 yard run. We were both bug eyed. The springs shouldnt be over 20 lbs yet, but this one easily was. He had caught a 32 on the same rod and reel last year and it was WAY smaller than this. YES way smaller.
I was reeling all the rods and reels up, trying to get the riggers up too and he was like damn I'm into my backing we have to chase this thing. SO he tunred to crank the wheel over, the rod was braced against the length of his forearm and his hand was firmly gripping the forebutt (like we all do)and the fish decided to take off again, bending the rod 3/4 tip to butt and then straightening his arm and ripped it right out of his hand ! A 1.5 second pause and he superman dove off the stern into the ocean trying to grab his rod, he said he felt the very butt of it between his ring finger and middle finger and lost it, as it went down. Well by now I'm probably 50 yards away from him and he's yelling pick me up, so I come around and pull him up on the deck (we are in a 22 foot campion, grady white style boat) and he's just wired with adrenaline. Neither of us realize what has just happened and look like we saw ghosts. I decided to drop both riggers to bottom and motor in the direction the rod went and zig zagged, hoping to at least get the rod and reel back, as it was a $500 MR2 and a nice lamiglass rod. It never worked. At first he was just choked, but afterwards all he wanted was to have had a glimpse of that fish ! Now, we've both fished a long time and have had plenty of fish over 30 pounds and he KNOWS this is by far the biggest salmon he's ever hooked. Including all the trips to Nootka, bamfield etc.
All I had to say was there are salmon caught upwards of 90 pounds and before they get that big they have to be 40,50,60 so it's anybodys guess how big it was. Our first summer run spring arrived at the hatchery April.6, so that's obviously what it was, but who knows with the temperature and climate changes now-a-days, it's anybodys guess. Curiousity killed the cat but it keeps us going out there time and time again and man am I happy we live where we do ! We're goin out first light tomorrow, he wants revenge. ( Already went and replaced the rod and reel lol)
