Sucker for the win.
As silverkype posted on another thread, I have recently caught the fish of a lifetime...
It happened on a trip a week or 2 ago on an Ohio trib where three friends and I were after Manistee steelhead for a few days.
One of my friends decided to "make it intersesting" and place a bet on the first days fishing. The bet was whoever catches the biggest fish of the day, drinks for free that night. I was all for this considering the four of us usually go through a good case of beer, and a bottle of whisky in one night, which can get expensive. Our night of drinking on a fishing trip usually consists of the bunch of us sitting around a campfire drinking and lying to each other until we can't keep our eyes open. It's at that point when we go to bed, and wake up to fish after not enough sleep.
The day started out just as we hoped with a couple fresh spring steelhead landed right away, all of which were right around the 28" mark. By 3:00 we had landed a few more fish of the same size, but at that point there was no clear winner. Just as we decided to fish for another hour, then go back to the hotel for a nap, I saw it... The biggest golden flash in the water I have ever seen.
It's no secret among my friends that I have a knack for catching a certain type of fish. To make a long story short... if there's a sucker in the creek, i'll catch it, especially if there is a camera present. This day was no exception. Afterall, there were 3 cameras present, and I was fishing my failproof sucker rig; a pair of creme delight glo-bugs. Odds were on my side.
On any other day, I would avoid casting to a sucker, but today that giant golden flash I saw was my ticket to free whiskey and beer. Remember the wording of the contest was "biggest fish" not "biggest steelhead".
After a couple casts and no fish, I added another shot, thinking a sucker probably wants its food drifting on the bottom. You see, there's a science to this kind of fishing.
A few drifts later the indicator went down, the hook was set, and the slack was gone. Free whisky and beer was on the line.
My friends watched as what they believed was a steelhead stripped line from my reel. My buddy Dave grabbed the net, hoping to help land the biggest fish of the day. Five minutes later, he netted a giant. There was an electricity in the air, just like any time a monster falls. This time, that monster just happened to be a sucker. My friends couldn't stop laughing.
The last laugh, however, came when the fish measured 2 inches bigger than the biggest steelhead of the day, and I reminded them of the "biggest fish" contest, which was just won by a sucker.
After a hero shot or two was taken, and the fish was released, I gave my speech, where I started with: "as long as I live, I will likely never catch another one as big as I did today"...
Here are the pics:
and the prize:
post edited by thedrake - 2010/04/16 12:39:45