-The fabled giant of the HOH-
(Part two)

Undaunted I re-rig. Same size of egg cluster and red corky. Razor sharp hook, honed to perfection. I half-heartily cast to the same (nearly) exact spot in the fast-water seam below the rapids at the head of the pool. Five bounces, six, seven, eight, thirty feet have bounced beneath my weight and rig, WHAM!!
No yank, no tap just WHAM!! Here we go again, on the first re-cast. -(Re-insert the first portion of part one here)- Twenty minutes have elapsed with not a sign of this new Giant letting up. I can feel my line, nearly spooled, begin to twing, twing as it does right before breaking. I try everything to gain some ground and save my (obviously too light) line from snapping. Up the basalt cliff, down the basalt cliff, up the rugged shore. There is no trail and anything more than a footstep into the water yields a five foot drop off. Suddenly the fish turns! Oh s**! back up and down the rocks, a heavy pulling the entire time. I nearly fell twice, tore my waders. Sweat dripping, heart racing, I jump back to the basalt landing. The fish dives deep and sits there, pulling, but not moving anywhere, inches from the same line cutter edge I had just experienced, in the fast deep water. Man, now what do I do? I tap my rod, wiggle the shaft side-to-side, lift up the tip, turn it right left repeatedly, nothing. I begin to wonder if its caught on a stick or log..... A VIOLENT eruption! the hog has risen! The surface is aboil with a Gigantic tail and silvery red flashes! My god its a huge buck Steelie! Bill Herzog would be impressed, Lanny Waller would salivate, Jim TEENY would scream! If only they were here to witness this UNBELIEVABLY HUGE fish. It can't be a steely it has to be a king. No, Kings don't look snaky and long like that. No, Kings don't get that unique red cheek-blush-to-double red stripe! The buck rolls, turns, dives and finally gives up. It is so massive (no imbellishment here) I don't dare lift much with my sewing thread line. One good flop and its gone. I jump off the rock into the river and introduce myself with a firm handshake to the tail-wrist (My hand didn't fit, it took two). I got it, I got It! Lisa, get the camera! "Remember, I forgot it". Apparently uninterested, she lazily glances to see what her silly husband is up to. Within seconds she is off her feet by my side saying "My god what IS that thing!?" "Its the fabled HOH giant, wife". I look at her and say "Better take a mental picture love, no one will EVER believe me...." The thing spanned my thighs, the head a foot from my knee on the right ( I was kneeling as if posing for a pre-release photo) The massive giant-maple-leaf tail another two feet from my left knee. The thing looked like a boa constrictor with a double red stripe. Its eyes looked around, its gills fanned, water and slime dripped from its lower jaw. Nary a trickle of blood came from the tiny (3/0 !) hook impaled squarely in the left corner of the massive jaw (I don't want my hand in that mouth!) as life pulsed through this marvelous proof of God's genius. I put my right hand over its back behind the head and it wouldn't fit across the back; it would have taken two hands just to span the shoulder!
The giant was still alive and breathing, I could feel the lion's heart beating in its chest through my wool gloves. It had an adipose fin the size of a can of copenhagen, flopped over to the side and glistening. Its dorsal fin was the size of a bussiness size envelope.
Thank you God. Noone will ever believe me. But I believe, and so does Lisa, now. I slipped the huge buck into the slack water and helped it catch some oxygen, within five minutes it beagan a little struggling action and then with a croak and grunt it twisted once HARD, seemed to look me straight in the eye with that fifty-cent-piece-sized left eye and was gone. A Mork and Mindy quote (Robin williams ) popped into my head "Fly away! Be free!"
All I have left is the deeply seared memory of that two hour window, on the HOH, in August, with my wife, and the last splashes of freedom of the fabled GIANT of the HOH......