Took my kayak out to American lake at daybreak for a couple hours of trolling for Kokanee. Fishing was slow for me, after a couple hours I missed 2 hits on wiggle hoochies ~30 feet down on the downrigger. Tried a few different colors of spinner hoochies but they were ignored.

I decided to make one more lap before I had to head in, put on a green/glow wiggle hoochie tipped with pink gulp maggots trolled close to the VA hospital. Just to mix it up as I wasn't getting hits I bumped up my speed to 1.5-1.6 mph and put the downrigger a few feet down (~33') to see if that would trigger a strike. All of a sudden my rod doubles over, pops the line off the clip and pumps hard. After a few nerve racking runs, jumps and dives I netted the chunky football. What a fight, I'm so lucky it was hooked deeply. It just crushed the wiggle hoochie as both hooks were deeply embedded in the jaw. By far my personal best kokanee, taped out after being in the cooler at 17.5" and real chunky!

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