Hog on The AR 10/5/12

Ethan told me that yesterday with the weather change the bite was on fire out at the local honey hole, so I had to make sure I woke up early to get out there and grab my piece of the pie while its here. Ethan and I rolled up around 0430 or so. Love being the first one there. Got our spot in the line and waited till an hour before to make the first cast. While we were waiting Garrett came and meet us down there to do a bit of fishing before he had to go to school. Legal time for us to fish was 6:06. Right at the minute lines went flying and 3rd drift into it Garrett hooks up and lands his first fish. Garrett says there is too much fish in his freezer so he released all of his fish and I couldn't get any pictures sorry.

The first light bite was on people everywhere were hooking up. My turn comes around just before 0700. Fought him up the line and as I was walking back to shore my small box with all of my tackle in it fell out of my pocket and I didn't notice it until is was about 20ft down river from me. Crap! I ran down with the fish still on the rod in hand and managed to get my box back, but in the mean time the fish had ran off and I lost all of the ground I had gained on it. I made up for it and got it back to shore. I didn't realize it in the fight but wow this fish is huge!

First look I was guessing 30lbs.

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Defiantly my best of the season so far. Ended up being 27 on the scale.

The bite was hot and heavy till about 0830. Out of maybe a dozen guys the most we had hooked up at once was 6 guys almost 7. A crazy event that we like to call a fishgasm. Its absolute chaos with that many people hooked up at once but man its awesome. One thing I noticed today I didn't have the only hog out of the bunch. Lots of fish pulled in today were in the 25lb class or better. Many of them were lost and for good reason. They were big and had a ton of fight in em!

I gave it till about 0930 and called it quits. Started losing too much gear to the rocks. I kind of wanted to stick it out for my limit, but I wasn't too worried about it because I knew it was going to be hard enough carrying my one fish I had back to my truck. I got back to the bank and tried picking my fish up and said, yea no this ain't happening. Left the stringer on and tied the rope off to his tail and slung that bad boy over my back.

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I didn't like having to get fish slime and blood all over me, but you got to do what you got to do.

Epic morning, can't wait for more. This cooler weather really got the fish on the move today and I'm sure its just going to get better.

Till Next Time Guys
Mark

P.S. Fighting these salmon in the current with my 7ft bass rod is a huge pain in the ass. Wishing my Clarus didn't break . . .