April 97, Rogue river springer.
We were anchored in a hog line with 4 other boats. Our boat was the second boat from the left bank if you were looking down stream. The sfish takes a spinner and when I grab the rod out of the rod holder the fish just sits on the bottom like a I hung up. I reel down and jerk up hard on the rod to see if I cant free my spinner from the "snag". Upon doing that the fish starts a slow run to the right and up stream. When this happens my buddy throws off the anchor line so we can drop down and fight the fish. As he is tossing off the anchor line the fish hits warp speed up river and to the right around the end boat in the hog line. Im using a Loomis HSR1025C (15 to 30#) With an Abu 6501 spooled with 50# Tuff Line with a 35# Maxixma UG leader. I try putting the skids to the fish but it just keeps going. Next thing we know is we have 75 yards of line out going over the top of 3 boats as the fish screams upriver as we are drifting down. It was a good thing the guys in the other boats were paying attention, The would grab my line and hold up over thier boats as the fish screamed on by. My buddy got the kicer motor fired up and tried to go out and around the 3 boats that were anchored to our right. The kicker wasnt strog enouh to get out and up stream so he had to fire up the 200 horse Yamaha and give chase. Once we got out around and upstream of everyone and I gained back a bunch line, the fish made a mad dash to its right peeling off another 50 yards of line beore beachin its self. Before we got a look at the fish we figured it was a hawg, It wasnt. It wieghed out at 25 lbs...... Anyways..... I figured the fish was whipped so I drug t back in the water planning to reel it to the boat. By this time we were just about where our anchor was set. When the fish got about 10 feet from the boat it made another run. This time it was downstream between the 2 boats we were anchored betwen. As the fish passed our anchor line he crossed over it and ripped on down river. At this point I figured it was gone because I couldnt feel it anymore due to the fact my line was over our anchor line by the float. When that happened my buddy killed the big motor and used the kicker to manuver the big 22' sled around our ancor line and between the 2 boats. As we passed the float untangled my line from and reeled up the slack to discover the fish was still on. The rest of the fight was pretty basic, Pum the fish in, net, apply wood shampoo and toss in fish box.

The coolest thing about the whole ordeal was, the 4 boats in the line with us were all guide boats with clients. I guess we gave them a pretty good show, because that night at dinner at a resturant someone was talking about it. The guy I was fishing with is a guide friend of mine that didnt have any clients that day.

Thats my most memorable battle with a fish. Another good one was short but exciting. I was on the upper drift on the south Santiam just below the put in. I dropped just below all the bankis and ran out the divers with sandshrimp. I made about 4 strokes on the oars when my rod gets slammed. I drop the oars, dup the anchor and grab the rod and set the hook. The summer steelead jumps once, runs strait at the boat jumping 4 times with the 4th time landingon the fly deck of my drift boat. My fishing partner had laid out all his stuff on the deck, it was now spread all over the boat by one pissed off still green thrashing steelhead. He grabs at the finally getting a hand on by the gills and punches it out. This all happened in about 20 seconds in front of about 30 people. We all got a good laugh out of that one.