I just got back from fishing mineral lake today and need to vent. I think i'm going to be having nightmares for a few weeks after this.
I Finally got a day off today so I decided to go to Mineral and rent a pontoon boat for the day to just kick back and relax. The fishing was pretty slow, but I was enjoying the day anyway. I caught a few small trout, and didn't see anyone else catching much either. So in my infinite wisdom I decide to start fishing with my ultra-light pole (5' 2-4lb line). This is a serious noodle rod, but is fun to catch small trout with( I bet you can see where this is going all ready).
I caught a small rainbow. And towards the end of the day I caught about a 2 lb German brown. It put up a heck of a fight with my light pole and 3 lb. leader. So I'm thinking that was pretty cool, I can handle some big fish with this little rod. About 45 minutes later as I'm relaxing in those plastic chairs my pole doubles over instantly. No little nibbles, just WHACK, and line starts screaming off the reel. Once I got the drag cranked down and the line stopped, the fish realized it was hooked. I knew instantly that I should have left the ultra-light at home(did I mention I left my net at home?). Any way I managed to get the fish up along side the boat to get a good look at it. You guessed it, a huge brooder. This fish was at least 10 lbs. It came up right next to the 2 lb. brown and made it look like a minnow. At this point I know I'm screwed because I have no net and the deck of the boat is about 18 inches higher than the water. The fish doesn't look very tired, but I thought this was probably my only chance to get it in the boat. So the only thing I can think to do is to put the back of the plastic chair just under the water and pull the fish onto the chair. Well I now know big trout do not like plastic chairs. Because when that fish saw that chair coming, it snapped that 3lb. leader like it was nothing(oh wait- it was nothing).
SS