Headed out this afternoon to Lake Cassidy. Arrived and dumped the boat in the water .......dead batteries. Had to use the outboard to bring myself and another nice gentleman whose battery had also died back to the launch. I put the boat back on the trailer and dropped it off at the house and made my way out to Blackman's to try my luck. I fished for a bit by the boat launch plunking powerbait to no avail. I decided to give the park docks on the other side of the lake a shot. I decided on fishing from the dock on the right hand side, no particular reason, just had a feeling. The first few hours where very slow then all of the sudden an older Russian gentleman who was fishing with a friend on the same dock hooked into a nice triploid of at least 5lb. I helped him land it and he took off. He caught it fishing off the bottom with a whole crawler in fairly shallow water, well that told me it was time to put away the power bait and tie on something geared a bit toward larger fish. I went with a Rapala in perch pattern. Right away had a nice fish on in the 2-3lb range but it spit the hook on me. had a few other short strikes......then it happened! Wham! Bait got absolutely hammered. The fish came to the surface for a moment and put off a wake like a whale! One of the guys on the dock was nice enough to lend his net and just as the fish hit the net it broke the line. I got lucky this time. To date this is my biggest rainbow and an experience I won't soon forget. Sorry for the cell phone pics but I left the camera at home.

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