It was a fisherman’s paradise. I brought a new spinning rod equipped with a Mitchell 300 reel and fifteen pound test line. I was ready for a summer of fishing, and I never looked upon the sport quite the same after that. Red, Chums, Silvers and King salmon spawned in the river. The Reds came in first and then Chums. Silvers were the last to run the river starting in September. I was interested in the Kings. These were the big ones, the tackle breakers, the trophies.
The Kings started showing up not long after the Reds, but they did not appear in large schools - usually only a few crossed the panels at a time. One day, while I was on the tower counting, a loner crossed close by my shore. I was truly stunned. It was the largest fish I’d ever seen in the water. It was at least six feet long, like a submarine.
I hooked into Kings nearly every day, and landed many that ranged fifteen to twenty-five pounds - the biggest was maybe forty to fifty, but I wanted a really big one.
I had lots of fun for a while, but soon realized that my reel had a flaw I sat the drag so a fish had to work to take line, but after I hooked one and it made several runs, the line became frayed. On the third or forth run it would break, and I’d loose a spoon and thirty or more feet of line.
Little by little my tackle box emptied of lures and my spool dwindled to almost nothing. I was down to my last lure, a little red “Dare Devil” spoon, an inch long. I replaced its small treble-hook with a larger one, added some weights, and went out one more time. Yes! You guessed it. I hooked into the Submarine King. It didn‘t jump, but made a ran for the far shore. Its back, a foot wide, raised out of the water as it headed downstream. I never turned it. It kept going…with my last lure and all my line.
THE END
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