I never saw the best fighting fish I ever hooked, but I assume it was a springer. I was fishing for steelhead above Waterloo falls on the South Santiam in June three years ago. I had waded out on a rock as close to the falls as I could get drifting pink yarn when I hooked up a big fish. It ran down toward the falls and wrapped the line around a rock. I could still feel the fish, so I waded out more to try and free the line. The river really trenches out above the falls, and before I knew it, I'm sucked in and my chest waders are starting to fill as I bob toward the falls. As I pass the rock with the line wrapped around it I manage to loop it off, and the fish is still there. Seconds later I get me knees up on a boulder and continue fighting the fish, who's still trying to go downriver. It somehow manages to wrap itself up again, however, and seconds later its gone. I dragged myself up on the bank nearby, completely exhausted, and thanked the fish gods for a memory that won't easily be forgotten, even though the fish won. HT