A Story of

Fishing - What else could it be

The scene is a wide oxbow on the Nottawasaga R. The time is early September. Leaves aren't quite changing colour yet but you can tell the green isn't as sharp as the summer. We are fishing the cottage stretch or the ' white house ' run. We know that there is a slot or channel that cuts a little deeper , out about 25 ft from where we stand.
Our gear is waders and light jackets , just in case the mosquitoes come out to get us. The pickerel ( walleye ) have been persnickitty all day. The bite has been very light. We have the saying ' if rainbows ( trout ) are in there , they'll hit only to be nasty, pickerel could sit there all day and not budge '.
Well ,the pickerel had been sitting all day. The water levels were down and water clear. We adjusted by going to 4 lb test line and # 12 hooks. A #12 is the size of the nail on my baby finger and I have small hands. But when the pickerel get finicky , the lighter the drift , the better.
The technique that we use is bottom bouncing. The terminal gear is a small split shot or two ( called B s ) and the #12 hook - nothing else on the 4 lb test. The current is moving pretty good. We cast upstream of our position and let the line sink and swing in front of us. The weight will clatter along the bottom skimming rocks and branches ( you hope ). The bottom contact time is about 10 - 15 seconds. We wait for the swing to go past and retrieve the line.
The sun is setting at around 8 PM and we have approximately an    1 / 2 hr of fishing left.
To fool the fish , I am down to 1 / 2 a garden earthworm and drifting very light. I feel a touch and raise the rod up to set the hook.
My rod goes straight down. The reel starts to sing as line peels out
, my hand is shaking as I try to lift the rod to horizontal or higher
The line is headed upstream in a boil of thrashing water. This is some big pickerel , until we see the fin. A chinook salmon.
The salmon have been running the river since the U.S. states , such as Michigan , mainly , started stocking salmon in the late 70 s.
The salmon hunting for food find deeper water and food on the Canadian side of L. Huron.
The line is going out at an incredible rate. Suddenly , my brother yells ' turning fast , reel '. There I am barely holding on and cranking like crazy. I manage to get back 80 % of the line and in 15 seconds lose that and more as the fish heads downstream.
This change is not good , now the fish has the current working for him ( or her ).  Since we were not expecting trout or slamon , we have been using 4 lb line on top of or regular 6 lb running line.
As the line had peeled out we noticed that I must have been adding line on top of line , all summer. As we watched the line go out , we saw 4 different colours and the corresponding 3 knots swaying back and forth as the line ran out. This is an Oops moment - more knots , more places for the line ( s ) to fail.
The sun is failing as it drops behind the sand hills. And I'm no closer to getting any line back or the fish. There comes a time in an event such as this , where the thought comes to you ' uh , oh ,never going to happen , is it ? '. My brother and I looked at each other in the dimming light. He shrugged and I started walking toward the pool where the fish had taken up station , just holding in the slightly wider deeper water.
Walking toward the fish isn't the best choice. The longer the line the stronger the line ( more stretch over the longer distance ). And I was shortening the line. As well , our biggest fear is slack line as this gives the fish a chance to throw the hook. However , after 40 minutes and fading light , there seemed , little choice.
I reached the pool and elevated the rod as much as possible and my brother waded out , knee deep with the net. I hear a scream ' charging me '. I reel and reel and I'm losing , I see the line get limp a bit ( slack line ). My brother is there with the net between his knees and yells ' got him' . The salmon had charged the shore and swam into the net , all 50 " of him. I ran to help my brother who is wrestling this flopping thing and we manage with very little finesse and a bunch of luck to throw the whole heaving mass of net and fish up on the shore.
OK. What in the world is this fish. The salmon was a chinook , in prime shape. The fish was silver and dark , dark back. A fresh run fish. After 2 - 3 weeks in the river , the chinook darken , go softer and males get a hook jaw. I latched onto a new fish , correspondingly  ,full of fight. 
The salmon weighed in at 19 lb 4 oz. When I could hold it up with 2 hands , the tail was bare inches from the floor. The line came off the spool like wet noodles , twisting and knotting as it came off.
Dead line.
Smoked and plated , the salmon was a feast. Oh, sorry if your a salmon , don't get caught by a hungry fisherman.

The weather is as cold as yesterday but we have bright sun flooding the south window. There is a slight warming due but cold is pretty much here.