PREPARATION PAYS OFF
By Bob Jensen

An angler doesn't get a chance at a big fish, a truly big fish, very often. Sometimes it's a once in a lifetime deal, a few anglers get a shot at a trophy once-a-year, and some very fortunate anglers get to tangle with a really big one several times a year. No matter how often you get the hooks into a lunker, it is important to be prepared. Recently, being prepared paid off in a big way for me.

I am an advocate of using fresh line, and am usually pretty diligent about spooling new line onto my reels on a regular basis. However, sometimes I get lazy, especially late in the year. Knowing that there might only be two or three open water fishing trips left in the season, I just use the line I have been using for the past couple of weeks. That's not a good idea, especially this time of year. Your chances of hooking a true trophy are better now than at any other time of the year; Your line is no place to cut corners.

We had a trip planned to the Oconto Wisconsin area. This area is noted for trophies. I decided to spool on fresh line, eight-pound test Trilene XT to be exact. The first two walleyes we caught were in the ten-pound range. Fresh line had already paid off. However, the big pay-off was yet to come.

The next day we were in a river in the Oconto area. The river was connected to Lake Michigan, and king salmon were beginning to move into the river. We were fishing for smallmouth bass with medium tackle and the eight-pound test line, which was more than adequate for smallies.

We took a few smallmouth, along with walleyes and a largemouth during the day and were almost ready to put the boat on the trailer. We decided to try one more spot. One of my fishing partners, Jim McDonnell, and I cast almost to the same spot. I gave my Frenzy Minnow one twitch and the water exploded. Mac hooked up at almost the same time. We both had hooked king salmon, one of freshwater's strongest fish. The thing was, we were geared up for two to three pound smallmouth bass, not king salmon, which commonly go in excess of thirty pounds.

My fish headed straight for Lake Michigan; Mac's headed for mid-river. Mac got his fifteen pound king in the boat in just a few minutes, but mine was a hundred and fifty yards downstream and moving away. The line was almost gone from my reel, so we tried to keep up by following the fish with the electric motor. That helped, but there was still lots of fight in the fish.

By now the salmon had scraped my line across a channel marker and on the underside of one of the ships anchored along the river. I was putting as much pressure on it as I dared. We were taping a segment for our Fishing the Midwest television series, and had already run seventeen minutes of tape, and the camera hadn't been running all the time. This fish was wearing me out, but the equipment was hanging in there.

Finally we got the fish under control. It was foul-hooked in the side, which explained it's strong runs and stamina. When a fish is foul-hooked it has all the leverage and long battles are normal.

Upon landing the king, we guessed it to be in the low twenty- pound range. We estimate it took thirty-five minutes to land it. Since it was foul-hooked it had to be released, but that was ok. A fish that strong deserved to be set free.

The gear I was using was a seven-foot medium action Lightning Rod, a Mitchell 300X spinning reel, and eight pound test Trilene XT. This is a very affordable set-up, but obviously is completely adequate for extreme fishing conditions. The key was having fresh line when the fish struck, and a tremendous job on the electric motor by Mac.

Although most anglers may never hook a king salmon while fishing for smallmouth bass, you never know when a big largemouth is going to strike your crappie jig. When that happens, you'll find that preparation does pay off.