from dawn 'til dusk

I went up to the big pond yesterday. I started at 6am and didn't get off the lake until 8pm. I started right out front of the ditch and started an east troll. After a couple hours of nothing but cleaning lures I was listening to the radio and there was a bite on over by Chicago. So against my better judgement I pulled gear and ran 1 hour and 45 min to where the bite "was".
Well you guessed it by the time I got there all I had to show for it was a very light gas tank. Oh well it was only noon and I thought I would be able to troll all the way back, so I started trolling. I went until 1pm when I got my first hit. He was only on for a matter of seconds before he came unbuttoned. As it got later I began to wonder about my kicker's gas level so I reached down and checked it, it too was getting light.

My next bit of action came at 6:17 when I hooked into a 4 pound (I thought King at the time) Coho. No more did I turn my back to put the Coho into the cooler all hell broke loose. As I was putting water into the cooler I heard something break behind me, after a quick inventory of my gear I realized a rod was gone. I grabbed the tether and started to pull the rod only to realize that there was a fish on the other end. After getting the rod and starting to fight the fish I saw it had hit the lure with such ferocity that it broke my rod holder leaving only the peg on board. Well with all this going on it put the boat in a terrible shit hook so I had to straighten that out.  Once I was able to get the fish and the boat in such a way that he couldn't get back in the other lines or gear in the water I cut the motor, to make landing him easier.

With 2 fish in the box I really wanted to be done but with the both engine's almost out of gas I decided to troll in until 8pm, then kick over the big motor and that should get me the rest of the way in...
NOT
As you can see in the pic I did not make it in, actually I thought my kicker would run out of gas before I got in. Fortunately I did make it in without being towed or rowing.

  Boy did I learn my lesson I won't go out again on anything less than a full tank of gas.

13# and 4# Coho the ruler is 2' long

This pic does not do this Coho justice it was HUGE.
This is the biggest Coho I have ever caught and actually it even tops any of the Kings I have caught. When I got home and realized I had caught Coho and not Kings I looked up the state record and saw I only missed it by 7 pounds. If you print off this pic it would weight 10 pounds..... that's how big this fish was.