I remember posting on this thread back in 2012. Biggest spring for me back in those days was a 40 pounder I got at the Iron Mines just around the corner from Lund. First time I ever tried anchovies…in fact, it was on the first drop of the first anchovy out of the pack. I dropped it in 5 meters of water right up against the Iron Mine cliff thinking once I was off the shelf I’d drop it down a bit deeper but the fish was on that piece of bait just a few meters under the boat. An hour later I got it in the net off the beach at Savary Island. A major screamer of a spring.
I’d picked up a few 50’s when I lived in Alaska fishing the Kenai River and a 65 lb fall chinook in the Quilleyute River but figured I’d never get big springs like that in the salt chuck
Then that all changed in 2015. I was cut plugging in about 20 meters of water and I saw a big red smudge on the the screen of my Furuno sonar. No bait, nothing else on the screen except what can only be described as a red smudge.
Then I got the take-down. Unfortunately I had a guide boat doing his normal 5 knot tack right off my transom and despite signaling to him I had a fish on there was no way he was going to back off or slow down because….well, he was a guide.
Instant resistance —-the fish had wrapped one of his big Yamahas. I could see that clear as day based on the angle of the line. Despite my protests, pointing where I was wrapped etc etc he started picking up all three of his downriggers . Meanwhile, throughout all this, the fish was absolutely smoking line off my Hardy Silex and heading straight towards Japan. The guy finally shut off his outboards when he saw his downriggers came up clear and tilted one of them up. Thwack went the line….miracle of miracles….it somehow popped free—-it must have been wrapped just above the skeg because no way it would have popped free like that if had been wrapped above the prop. And the only reason I was free with the fish still on was because this was the first year I tried braid. No way would mono have put up with that kind of abuse because the entire time I dealt with that guy and his boat the fish had been pulling line off the reel
An hour later, drenched with sweat, having burned off an entire tank of kicker gas during the chase, I finally got this into the boat.
The next day, I went back out to the exact same spot and got a 40.
Would I ever do that bit of greedy carnage again?
No, I wouldn’t.