Newby wants to hear your first king story

[Adk1]

Do u remember your first king experience? I have yet to have one!

[shinintimes]

it was august of 87 by the north dunes off sandy pond flat calm about 95 hooked a 31 pounder right in the butt  wow what a fight had to let it go.... haven't thought about that in a long time thanks and good luck !!!!

[Willy-C]

I'll bite.....

 

Last August I went to Lake O for the first time.......three of us in my boat and we did pretty well except for every stinking fish on the end of whatever I was holding on to either broke off or just got off......  ..nothing but limp poles

 

They started calling me "Weenie-C" cuz of the hat I bought at a local tackle shop

 

One the last day the other two guys said "You need to get something in this boat so we can go home"......my reply "The only thing I need is a pix of us sitting on the transom with the rods out, We'll pull them right at high noon then get outta here" 

 

Well we got the pix, four rods in the lake, three of us were pulling rods and the very last rod was thumping and I got my king (IIRC 18 lbs)

 

the time stamp on the pix of us sitting was 8-26-2012 11:57am

 

 

the time stamp with me holding this king was 826-2012 12:03 pm

 

 

It was a classic, last day, last minute with the last rod in the water

 

 

 

Funny thing is, my boat is packed and ready to pull out of NH at 5am for round two......It's gonna be a great weekend

 

Wave Hi to the little grady if you see us out of Mexico Point

 

Willy-C (formerly Big-Weenie-C)

[fieromx3]

well... to be honest i dont think ive ever got so excited... now thinking of it i cant believe i reacted so strongly lol

 

it was last year may two-four weekend. me and my brothers first day on lake ontario and first time fishing for trout and salmon. we used dipsy divers and spoons only and were slamming fish all day but all coho and rainbows. one fish hit the rod and started ripping line and bending my pole like hell, the fish was way out abot 350 feet and it started swimming toward us and diving DEEP within about 20 seconds it swam probably to 150 feet below the boat. i reeled it up and my brother went to net it and he was like OMG this one is huge compared to the others!!!

 

the fish was to big for the net and he struggled to grasp it with his hands but he did end up getting it in the boat! 

 

we got the fish in and it would not fit in our cooler at all the thing was sticking out it was so big. i got so excited and in shock i pretty much collapsed to the floor of the boat and through up!!!

 

now i have caught way way bigger fish than that mostly from saltwater (a few pounds shy of florida state record sailfish!!) but something about this one because it was only me and my brother that got with our own boat/rig/knowledge was really satisfying!!

 

i will never forget it!

Edited April 26, 2013 by fieromx3

[Storm Warning II]

Tough Labor Day weekend bite off Olcott. NE blow screwed up "Heavens Waiting Line" and no rods moved in 3 hrs where we had seen kings stacked up staging in a quick try the nite prior. Went into search mode heading straight north between the red barn and port. We hid 220 fow and a diver fires yielding a decent steelie, continued north and the port rigger with spinny fires, up comes a shaker, our first King! Sent the rig back down and it wasn't down 10 seconds and pops no bounce, no nothing, crap, release must be too loose...grabbed the rod and the drag starts peeling! What's going on? 20 minutes later a black backed submarine surfaces behind the boat...holy crap! Get it to the back of the boat and it makes its death run, crossing both rigger cables, wrapping in the starboard cable! Capt. Jimmy deftly straddles the transom and nets the biggest fish we've ever hooked on the boat. As he lifts the fish towards the rail, the line snap, but fish makes it onto the floor...a plump fall hen weighing in at 25 1/2 lbs. The pics, on an old school cam, are priceless...giddy looks of young men getting their first look at a set of lady lumps.

[Mortigan]

April 6th, 2011.  My buddy Charlie and I chartered with Legacy Sportfishing & hit the mega grand super slam, or whatever it's called when you catch practically everything in the lake.  We were happily exhausted by lunch, boating over forty fish: browns, lakers, steelhead, kings, coho, a couple atlantics and one random smallmouth.  Captain Rob ran himself ragged on that one!  We haven't had a day like it since but now we do our own fishing and we keep trying.  Today we caught our first seagull - Charlie reeled it in like a kite & we were able to remove our stickbait and release the bird unharmed, if a little shaken.

 

I'll always remember my first king

 

my first over 20 lbs

 

my first seagull    

Edited April 27, 2013 by Mortigan

[Sk8man]

My first chinook was in the late seventies about 26 lbs. and it was exciting but not nearly as exciting as seeing my 8 year old son catch his 31 pound chinook off a downrigger on 12 lb test line (dodger/ squid)  in 1985 in our 13 ft. whaler

Edited April 27, 2013 by Sk8man

[J.D.]

My first King, fall of 1989, ESLO Derby.... fishing between Irondequout Bay and The Port Of Rochester with a friend out of his old 16ft. Sea Nymph side console. First hit of the morning was a king just about 25lbs, off the rigger. NK mag...... biggest fish I'd ever seen. I got all excited about heading in to get her on the scales, My buddy Dave ( who used to run Strike Zone Charters out of Sandy ) grins, shrugs his soulders and pulls every thing so we can head in.

 

We hit the old warehouse at the Port Of Rochester for the ESLO way station. I proudly walk in holding my "big KIng" and the man at the sign in table tells me "son, we don't bother weighing in fish this small in the fall derby".......... I look back at Dave who smiled and said: " you had to hear it for yourself.. you would have never believed  me."  ..... My "not so big " king went back in the cooler ans we headed back out... me dejected but wondering how big do these things get?????..

 

 

first king.bmp

[PeltHunter]

Long story short I was 8 only me and my uncle fishing hooked a fish he crossed all of our lines and we thought he was gone. Started pulling lines and the fish started taking line again. Reeled him in and have been hooked ever since. Oddly enough I caught an Atlantic before a King.

[Kuba]

JD, nice story

[DJ 17]

I was 10 years old in my Dads 16 ft blue fin. We were out of Catfish creek and fishing east of nine mile. My Dad would never fish near ANY boat traffic no matter what, so we had already spent 10 hours trolling flat seas with 0 action. My Dad and his buddy who was with us were talking about picking up and calling it a day, when one of the riggers fire and starts screaming. I grabbed the rod and started screaming "I got a king, I got a king!". Like only a 10 yr old boy in a boat for 10 hours with no action can. Meanwhile the king is 300 ft out and headed for Canada. I have no idea how long it took me to land it, but when my Dad slid the net under a 28# king my face hurt I was smiling so much. It was a silver luhr jensen dodger and a blue/white squid. That lure was one of the "ones" you dream about. We put many of the same pattern out on later trips and they never produced like that "one" did. I think I cried when we it broke off on a later fishing trip. Never forget that fish...Ever.

[Gautreaufish]

This was my second salmon caught but it's a good story.  It was father's day 2010 and I got to pick what the family does for the day so I decided to take my wife and two daughters for a boat ride.  At the last minute I decided to bring a fishing rod.  we launched from 50 point (Grimsby Ontario Canada) and cruised out to 70 ft of water.  I set down a black/purple nasty boy to 50ft and we trolled around for about 5 minutes and bang the rigger fired so I grabbed the rod and right away I knew it was a big fish, he pulled line and fought hard for about 30 minutes and then he flopped on the surface and my wife couldn't believe how big that fish was.  I still did not own a net so I had to wait until he was tired enough and then pulled him up by his gill plate.  He weighed in at 36 lbs and we took a couple of quick pictures and then got him back into the water to fight another day.  I attached a pic taken with my 3 yr old daughter, you can see she was a little intimidated by this huge fish.  The biggest fish I have caught since is 25lbs, so I used up all my luck early in my salmon fishing career.

[Poles293]

It was last August 25th and it was my first year with my 18 ft aluminum boat. I spent the previous two months walleye fishing on Erie and learned how to use dipseys pretty successfully. I just bought a couple of wire dipsey rods and was eager to use everything I learned on LOU. My brother and I launched at Olcott and spent an entire Saturday trolling with the crowd in 200 ft of water without even moving a rod. We were using SD's with Atomik flies and couldn't move anything. 

 

The next day we went back out and this time as we were idling out of the harbor I checked the reports on this site and read a good one by Tim Bromund who pointed us to 400 ft of water. We followed a couple of charter boats out and the three of us were the only ones working 350-500 ft of water. We hooked up immediately and what a thrill when that dipsey rod started jerking and the drag was screaming out. After we landed about an 18 lb king me and my brother were laughing and high-fiving like we were 12 years old again. Ended up with 2 kings and a nice coho on the day. No record breaker of a day but we had a blast now we're hooked on Lake O fishing.

[LongLine]

Well, a long time ago, as I remember, we launched at the river under a typical morning sky.

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We soon located the mother of all fish schools:

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The first one hit hard & I knew we were into something:

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Finally landed it but it wasn’t quite the trophy we were looking for:

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My first mate Al wanted to handle the rod for a while:

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Myself, I was exhausted.  I think I woke up around 3:00:

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(And then went fishing)

 

 

Tom B.

(LongLine)

 

 

[Mortigan]

[Patriot]

I remember like it was yesterday. Mid September 1988, 2AM.  A bunch of us hicks from Sparrowbush NY headed to Pulaski (back then it was Pulaske) , ready for bear with our newly purchased broom handle fishing rods and $10 reels loaded with 14lb test green mono and huge weighted Mustad treble hooks (and I still have them) . We arrived at the Salmon River about 6 in the morning. Headed over the bank, only to see NO WATER flowing. WOW bummer.... At that point we all headed in different directions, except a friend and I headed to Port Ontario where the river meets the lake. We cast for an hour or so and I snagged one Coho and that was it. We had about 6 hours left, so we went west to the Oswego river.

When we arrived, it was nothing but fishermen, elbo to elbo. So we squeezed our way in and started casting. I ended up with my first King Salmon, snagged just behind the head. Man was I proud, even though it was black as hell. Took it home, smoked it, ate it and been coming back ever since but with a boat.

Edited May 3, 2013 by Patriot

[Sk8man]

:smile: :smile:   Tom

[Thun]

My first King was on a charter out of Sodus with Capt. Mike Wilchenski. Four of us were taking turns and I was up last. Well I had a few too many beers in me and when my turn came, the rod popped out of the rigger and not realizing the release sets the hook, I grabbed it and gave it a great big jerk . The tip of the fenwick, one of a ten rod set, snapped off and went sliding down the line. I did manage to land both the rod tip and fish but Mike wasn't too happy about it. I felt a little better when he told me the rod was insured. Years later I was telling someone that story and he said...YOU'RE the guy who broke Wilchenski's rod? I think I was a legend for a few years around Sodus.

[Misty IV]

I remember it all too well. August 13, 1998. I was fishing solo out in my, at the time boat, 18' Starcraft center console. I was between Catfish Creek and the power plant in about 120fow, manual downriggers were down around 90. The one release fired and the rod snapped up. I still can hear the "whoosh" of the tip. As the reel started screaming, I remember thinking to myself "Oh ****, oh ****". I started reeling, while trying to crank up the riggers by hand (I could only afford manuals back then). About 5 minutes later, the fish surfaced about 10 feet from the boat and took off again, peeling line. I got it to the boat again, but it wasn't done, as it took off again. Finally, after about 20 minutes total, I netted the fish...but it didn't completely fit in the cooler I had back then; about a foot of the fish was sticking out. I picked-up and ran into Lighthouse Marina to have it weighed. When I got there and tied-up, I can still remember the look of a little boy standing on the dock with his dad as I hefted the fish out of my boat and started walking up to the main building. The staff came out and was happy to assist me. The King weighed 33lbs, 2oz and measured 42 inches long. LM offered to hold onto it until I could get back to pick it up. As I returned to my boat, the dad with the little boy asked me where I caught that fish. When I told them, the little boy turned to his dad and asked if he could take him there to fish. I returned to the general area, but only had a few releases the rest of the day. I retrieved the fish later, took it back to the house to show the family and neighbors, then took it to Fish Wish in Pulaski to have it mounted. The fish now sits above the fireplace at the lakehouse.

 

The Fall LOC started a week after I caught that King. I watched the leaderboard, and my fish would have been the top fish for 7 days had I caught it a week later. 

 

The same day I caught my King, the NYS record Coho was caught about 1/2 mile from where I was fishing. All in all, a great day!!

[traveling man]

i dont remember the year, maybe 87,88. i was straight out from fair haven in about 300fow. the guy at the launch told me to use a black and silver spoon so i put one down on a downrigger. i did 2 kings that day and was so pumped! i still get excited every time someone catches a king on my boat.

[High Bidder]

10 years ago my Brother-in-law asked me to go along salmon fishing for a week. The first evening out he tells me to sit down and he will show me how to set the downriggers. After setting the one across from me he starts setting the one in front of me. As He is setting it I notice the other rod is bouncing and I ask him what causes that. He throws the rod he is setting back towards me so he can grab the other rod. Unfortunately the rod bounces off the side of the cuddy and goes over the side. He never notices this until the fish is landed. He stills tells me its my fault we lost a rod but the upside is that he bought a sealine to replace it the next morning. Three years later I bought my own boat so I could take my boys salmon fishing. Its my new addiction.

High Bidder

[Captain Carl Bish]

Back in the late 70's....we had this super hot lure called a Michigan Cricket...man they worked every time out!

[Missdemeanor]

August 1979 out of Manistee Michigan.....using a 00 silver prism license plate and a squid.....Fun week with lost of fish....hands down the roughest storm Ive ever been caught out in. Numerous boats didn't make it back to shore and were washed up on the beach. Amazing sight to see Hawaii 5-o waves going over the piers........