Better Days

[King Davy]

From a magazine article I wrote for the original Great Lakes Fisherman many many years ago....

I settled in listening to the hum of my V-6 outboard throttled down into trolling speed. Rods set in the holders and the crisp morning Lake Ontario air biting the tips of my ears even though it was late May. My fish finder showed me what I had hoped to find, pods of bait fish, shadowed by ominous larger hooks. “Lions†I thought…lurking behind the vast bait pods. The king salmon is to the food chain in the great lakes as the lion is to the animal kingdom of the great plains and jungles of Africa. ..AT THE TOP. You see the marks, as you troll past them …you imagine the rythmatic fluttering of the trolling spoons moving at a nervous pace through the depths, depicting escaping bait fish…follow the spoons life line to the monofilament that transcends to the surface, and you eye the arc’ed rods in the holders quivering as if they were stags on the plains knowing that behind the scrub brush lurked the dangers of the lion.

Your eyes flicker from the fish finders gray scale screen, to the rod tips and back again. The baits are moving past them, you watch the rod tips intently. You look for the slightest sign that a tip is about to buck loose. Salmon charge…and they pounce, and twist, and shake hard because they are violent. Out here on the big water…they don’t sip…they chug the bait fish. In and instant the number four rod rockets from the release….and you have to be looking at it to see the release, because as soon as the fish has tripped the line, he’s dashed down hard shaking with the furry of the lion taking down the stag, and the rod tip is not air born, but throbbing down into a tight “Câ€â€¦it’s tip almost touching the water. The reel starts out slow….and like the crescendo in a great symphony, builds to a high pitched whine as the fish using all it’s skills has sped away with the prize.

Grabbing the bucking rod with the line melting off the reel at light speed your first intuition is to stab the fish by setting the hook. However that would be disastrous, and you’ll break something, knot, hook, line, rod…many times the lion roars his disapproval of the lure in his jaw by hitting the lake surface with a series of leaps, or head and tail slapping tirades. Great lakes trolling tackle over the years has migrated into lighter rods, thinner diameter lines, and a 20 pound plus fish with 150 yards of line out feels overwhelming on this gear.

I love to watch the faces of first time king salmon anglers as they stand on the deck of the boat…with wobbly knees, mesmerized by the speed at which the mono is leaving the reel. They insist we’ve hooked a nuclear sub on it’s decent to the bottom of the lake. People who are intimidated by such power often make serious angling errors and many lose those first fish. At the helm you’ve started to bank the boat to the side the hit came on. You instruct the mate ( or run back and forth from the wheel to the rigs like a mad man making sure gear is secure and not in the way of the fight. ) . The fish will stop someplace between 100 and 200 yards down range. That’s a lot of line and drag in the water…you instruct the angler to pump and reel on the fish to gain back line while keeping contact with the fish. If you settle into the fish pumping rhythm you start to turn this fish and gain line….you see the angle of the monofilament near the boat and you realize you’ve almost reached the finish line. “I don’t see him yet, but he must be a big one†And finally that silver, pewter, black spotted demon raises from the deep, swaying back and forth, acting like a little kid who’s been scolded in the supermarket…seemingly willing to come to the net….NET! oooops…once they see the net, the next move is text book, one slash of their powerful tail and they spin on a dime and take off on another long run, and you begin the tedious process of wrenching them back again.

Once in the net you can do nothing but admire this species. The broad shoulders, big teeth, powerful tail. You notice that though the fight might have lasted 10 minutes and sometimes many moments more, your arms and wrists are sore, your arms in fact feel like two window sash weights hanging at your side.

[Richard]

Very nice. Enjoyed that on this cold winter day. Mouth watering in anticipation of my first Trip to the big lake in May. Praying for warmer days to start melting the ice and snow to once again be able to launch our boats.

[Patriot]

Had me salivating

[henrybud]

Great writing! Very much enjoyed. I was a subscriber back then as a teenager. I was lucky enough to attend Webster high school where I got to fish with the mighty Casper Pizzo (my shop teacher) and Tom Jackson of Skybuster charters. The 80's were overstocked goodness like deep frying your bacon! Thanks for that.