WAM!!!!!! zz....zzz....ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!!!!!!!!! Monster Salmon had just violated my spinner and took off with it, right towards the rapids. I let him run, knowing even if I palmed my spool once he'd snap me like it was nothing. A few seconds later, he launched right out of the water and my line went slack...NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!
I reeled up to find he broke me right off...must have rubbed on his teeth, the line wasn't tight enough for a pressure break. It jumped right in front of the guy fly fishing, it was a PIG! I'm sure it was well over 7 LB's. Well, I'm pretty used to losing pigs, so I tied on a Rainbow Rapala and went right back at it...
I fished towards the Burlington side for a while, about 20 or so casts and slow retrieves. I turned around towards the swirl hole facing the Winooski side, tossed a Yo-Zuri I had just tied on towards the rock ledges...slowly retrieved it and right as I started to change the angle of my rod to pick the lure out of the water, a slow moving fish came up right behind the lure and DEVOURED IT near the top of the water. AWESOME!
I could tell it was a Laker when it turned its body after hitting the lure. After a nice fight, it was in the net, a skinny spawned out Laker, taped at 22".
The rear teble was buried down deep, and when I finally popped it out it started bleeding bad. I called up one of the old timers, Walt and asked if he liked to eat Lakers, "Oh yeah, I LOVE EM!". It wasn't going to make it, I tried reviving it but saw the blood just kept coming, damn...I bled the fish, and held on to it until Walt got there later on in the day to bring it home for dinner.
I fished lures for a bit longer until Walt arrived and fished a different spot. Walked over to where he was to give him his fish, he thanked me and we fished the spot for a little while. No luck, so I headed towards the beach where someone was drifting some spawn bags through. He said he'd just lost one prior to me arriving. We both threw some bags and lures, he got a nice hit that crushed his bag and after about 30 minutes of chatting I headed back to the point, I had a feeling
Got there, tied on the ol' Yo-Zuri, covered most of the water facing the Burlington side, running it low and slow.
Thought to myself, "Time for another Laker"
Turned around, threw it towards the Winooski side in a bit deeper water, let it sink for a few seconds, started retrieving.
WAM!!!!!!!!! ZZZZZZZ!! ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!!!!!!!!!!! Oh boy, it's a big one! I knew it wasn't a Laker, it was fighting way too hard for a Laker.
After 10 minutes of struggling with the beast, I got it to the surface and saw the side of it, MONSTER Steelhead!!! Only had the bottom treble in the corner of its mouth, I started getting nervous...I was about to take out my phone to get it on video before I lost it, I had a bad feeling...
After at least a dozen HARD runs into the deeper water, I managed to net the leviathan of a Steelhead...oh MAN!!!
I looked around to see if I could see anyone, nobody around..I just HAD to get a picture with this fish. I lifted the net out of the water, ran over towards the small stream, put the fish back in the water and yelled out to a fly fishermen near the beach. He noticed me and walked over, then looked at me and said, "You're Matt......right??" Yup! He recognized me from LCU, said he'd seen my reports before, nice! We both checked the fish out in the net, he said it was the biggest he'd seen taken from the Salmon Hole, me too!
He helped me get some pictures with my phone.
Whipped out the measuring tape....27" FATTY, we were thinking it was at least 8 LBs!
I've also got a video of her swimming away after I released her
Going to upload it after I write this. I told John(The one who helped me) it was nice to meet him, and he said he'd try to get some time to post on the forum in this thread, maybe he'll make an appearance. I headed home after that, my day was complete!! Got my Master Angler Steelhead entry for the year baby, woo!!Randy and I will be back down for a 3-day weekend right up until Halloween, more reports coming soon!
