Great morning! Found a spot i like that was unoccupied. That's task 1 in itself now days. First cast and my bobber went down but it popped up right before I was about to swing. I knew it was a fish though and on my 3rd cast it took it again. Nice little bright native hen and I let her go. Only about 6lbs. About 15 mins later I switched to my spinner rod and first cast hooked into a nice big bright hen. She was a pain and had me in all sorts trouble. I was fishing a tail out and the river curves 90° to my side of the bank but it narrows as it turns and has big swells and the bank is kinda washed right there and it's just a huge log and stick pile. No way to follow the fish!!! And of course she starts heading down slowly. I got my rod in the water just trying like hell to get her to turn and come back but she's splashing in the waves now and I knew I was in trouble. I got her surfing the waves quite a bit but everytime I gained 10ft back on her shed go back down 11ft. I could barley see around the corner as she was splashing right in the sticks and stuff on the bank and I was out in thigh deep fast water doing all I could to push my rod out to try to get her away from the sticks. Then she found a patch of grass under the water and would nose right up to it and basically wedge herself against it. Id have to walk down as much as I could and when she'd come out I'd slowly walk back up river and we'd start over. This went on for about 15-20 minutes. I run 10lb straight mono on my spinner rod and I just knew my spinner and the fish would soon be gone. If we kept up with this game she was gona continue working her way down and I'd lose her anyways so I finally grabbed the reel and slowly walked back up further hoping the stretch in the line would help. My lower back was absolutely screaming at me. Sure enough she finally came up slowly and by the time I got her to the little rocky area to land her she was done. Bonk, bled, tagged. Then I went to cut some line off and retie my spinner on and that's when I really saw just how close I was to losing her. Hook is a 1/0 or 2/0 mustad siwash... anyways shortly after that I switched back to my bobber rod and landed another small hatchery buck. Not as big or bright as the lady but my back was done for. So 3 for 3 in around an hour. Can't be mad at that. I look grumpy in the photo, I'm not, just tired, worn out and sore.
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