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6-3-03

A Fishing Story:

So there we were, casting and stripping white and white/yellow bunny leeches along the drop-offs and snags at Pass Lake. Now, we have had your big browns stacking up minnows along the boat launch shoreline at daylight, gig. We have also had your hook a dink (new plant) and have a monster brown do the Ling Cod, on the little sea bass thing, which is pretty cool, but that has happened to me about once. No, this was your typical Pass lake Brown day. We started near the boat launch, and began working our way down the lake to the inlet on the east end.
By noon, we had done all that. Landed a couple lovelies, lost a couple more. Even caught a few rainbows on midges at the other end. It was time for the long row back. Heaven forbid, we would actually remember to bring our lunch. We were in our float tubes, and we were hungry.
I decided if we were going to paddle all the way back to the put-in, I was going to at least troll. I changed my head to a my deep troll, but just used the 4x leader I had been using for midge fishing rainbows along the far shoal.

On a whim, I decided to put on the biggest baddest looking thing in my box. The water was flat, and the sun was bright, by now. I chose an old chewed-up Cop Car, left over from Skagit Dollies. I tied it on the deep sinker, chucked the whole thing out on the water, (in a semi pile) and started paddling for home. When the line came light, I had probably gone about twenty feet, when the rod goes down , in that slow pull, when you know you have hooked the bottom. I was mumbling to myself of why I didn't at least wait until I had paddled out into deeper water before letting the line out.. I was ready to reef on it, when the line shuddered. I struck.

Now most fish will just take off. Rainbows are fast, browns are deliberate. This was more like Chinook walking off with the bait. The flyline just sort of unpeeled off the reel. I tightened into the fish a little more. He shook his head, and swam like he had a slow date to somewhere. I decided to reel up on him, which I did. All this accomplished was I found myself directly over the "whatever", and he began towing my boat around in a lazy circle.

My buddy, Jackson finally came back to see why I was lagging behind. I have to admit, I was feeling a little stupid.

He sees the flexed rod but it is not doing much. He gives me that look like, "Have you reduced yourself to fighting the lake bottom"?

I just shrugged. Nothing happened really. This "thing tows me around for about ten minutes. I could make it swim, but never managed to get it more than few feet off the bottom. Once in a while, it would shake it's head. After that the 4x simply parted and the fish and Cop Car were gone.

I looked at Jackson, he looked at me, neither said a word. We just headed in. I didn't bother to put on another fly.

Best of fishing,

Dennis