Off of the West Coast of Vancouver Island August 1990 fishing with 3 friends . We would go up 3 or 4 times in late July early Aug every year and usually hit the kings pretty hard. the run was late and all we hit where cookie cutter coho. We trolled the rocks ran out 5 miles it did not matter all we could muster where coho. The friends where bored and ate and drank too much and fell a sleep on the boat. So I could fish where I wanted. I decided to go into a cove and scrape the sandy bottom with the downrigger ball using a little Puget sound black mouth technique. I rigged up a sandlance colored hootchie behind a grren glow flasher. the rigger was se t to hit the bottom of the sany cove.The ball bounces a couple of times and my rod goes off peeling line like I have the bottom. I grab the rod and noticed that the line was headed out to sea and the boat was pointed North to the far shore of the cove. I set the hook and line screamed off of the reel. One of my friends wakes up at the sound and asks what I have, I tell him big king. He says no way it's a shark. All the wile line is still pouring off of the reel. At about 150 yards the fish stops and gives a couple of signature big King head shakes. I know what I have now is a King for sure. He holds his ground on me just short of a big kelp bed between the cove and the open ocean. He turns and runs for the boat. I am reeling the knuckle buster as fast as I can reel to stay in contact with the fish. He stops under the bott. I work on him for a while and he is down there thumping from side to side real heavy. If you have ever caught a big king you know what I am talking about. I gain a little on him and he comes up towards the boat. In typical king fashion when he gets near the surface he takes another dive towards the bottom. He stops and thumps from side to side holding his ground. He then runs towards the ocean again peeling off more line. I let him do what he wants but put a little more tension on the drag. The other two friends are awake now. They are betting its a shark and laughing a yuking it up. I catch 90% of the fish when we go fishing so they are always hoping the fish is small or I lose it or threatening to knock it off with the net. The king make another fast run under the boat and stops. He is less active but still putting up a good fight. It's been 20 minutes since I hooked him. I really put the presure on him and he comes towards the surface. He make on last dive for the bottom and then softens up a bit. I get him toards the surface and he head shakes furiously about 20 feet down. He then comes all the way to the top. All four of us are looking over the side and see a big flash of sliver abotu 20' down. Two guys start high fivin thinking it is a shark. the other friend keeps watching as I bring it to the surface. He grabs the net and then looks back at me and says" the nets too small" that stops the high fiving and the yuking from the other two and they lookover the side. The fish is giving a little fight and swimming around the surface. Another guy grabs the other net and all of us are calmly discussing the netting strategy. The fish is way to big for the full size slamon net. We decide to get as much of the fish in the first net as possible. The second net would be used for the tail section of the fish as they hauled it over the side. We decide to go for it and the fish flys over the side and two guysgo down with the fish flopping on the deck. There he was 74lbs of BC King. We had to go to the commercial fish scale in Tofino to get him weighed.