Redemption fish

Woke up at o'dark thirty, went outside with coffee and toast in my waders and tackle(whoops!) toolbox in hand. Dropped toast, hit the car seat ate it anyway, today was gonna be a toughie. Raining sideways as the stormfront rolled into town. Hit the boat launch, second driftboat in the river. An hour later rounded the deep bend without so much as a bump. Anchored up just above the next riffle and kwik fished for about 10 minutes, zzzt,zzztttt as line peeled off. Yelled at my partner to grab the pole. He didn't believe me that he had a fish, no headshake, just a slow pull as he reeled, like a back-eddy, but there isn't one any eddy in this section of the river. The fish just created a force of it's own.

As the line got near the boat the water exploded as a silver flash turned away from us. It had to be at least 35lbs just from the girth of the belly. Jack had the fish on for about ten minutes, it would hide under the boat and we would stamp our feet to force it out. After a few of those and at the crucial moment we were about to net the beast, the rod exploded under the pressure of a high stick. The line separated and the fish disappeared downstream.

Stunned and bummed we just sat there, a few minutes later at the bottom of the run a fish jumped completely out of the water and tried to throw a yellow kwikfish from it's mouth. We just shook our heads. And for the rest of the morning talked about her.

This beauty hit Jack's bobber bait about thirty minutes later and we at least felt redeemed when we netted it without any drama. That and the rainbow against the hillside a few minutes later were lovely respites from the winds and rain.