Two years ago I was fishing from the bank. Then about a year ago I bought a used one man pontoon boat. This winter I upgraded to a used drift boat. Now. I'm always looking for an excuse to get some time on the water.

One day my coworker says I should bring the boat to work so he can see it and we can hit a local lake after work. Well, yesterday turned out to be a nice sunny day and the water was calling our names. Somehow my buddy talked the boss into letting us leave work early. We left at one. I headed straight for the lake. My buddy had to run home and get his boat and a couple of neighbors.

I launched and did a couple of passes trolling and picked up one rainbow and had a few bumps. I've fished this small lake before and knew there was a deep section I wanted to explore a little more.

I recently rigged up my drift boat with a downrigger and I wanted to see how it worked. Having never used a downrigger before, it took me a bit to get it set up. The wind was starting to pick up so I was struggling keeping the boat headed in the right direction, rigging up the downrigger and controlling the line I already had in the water.

Finally, I got everything set up and working properly. I'm running a Rapala on the down rigger at 30 feet. I'm marking fish at 35 feet (the lake is at 40 feet). On the other pole I'm running a wee Dick Nite frog pattern. I did one pass and nothing. I turned around and raised the downrigger up a couple of feet.

Just as I'm about the hit the other end of the deep slot. BAM! Something hits my Dick Nite. Normally I get 13-14 bows with occasional larger one. Well what ever was on the other end of the line was not one of those little planters. For a second I thought maybe I hooked into a good sized bass.

The water in the lake is stained fairly dark. As the fish neared the surface I got a brief look at it. It was too quick of a look because and I couldn't make it out. Immediately it drove and started ripping line. Now I'm getting excited because I know it's BIG.

I play it for a bit, careful not to lose him. As I get him to head twoard the boat I get a good look. It's the biggest Rainbow I've ever hooked. I reach for my net. It gets hooked on something in the boat. With one hand I'm playing the fish and with the other I'm trying to get the net free. I'm starting to panic that this is just going to be another fishermans story about the one that got away.

Finally the net is clear, the fish in still on the line. Now I'm worried if I can net the fish. I take a stab and net the fish. Yehaw! Victory.

I bring it into the boat and look up. By this time my buddy is on the lake. He's on the other side, so I take a quick photo on my phone and send it to him. Just then I see the pole on the downrigger bouncing....... Could it be another monster? Greedy, I know. Alas, it was just normal rainbow but I hooked him bad and had to keep him.

Of course I had to rate this as a 5 because I was able to land this monster and I had pictures to prove it..... No fish story here today.....

Tight lines guys.

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