Went on a mission for some groceries yesterday.

The first fish was your typical 12-13 pound fishy for this river.



Ok, I won't name any rivers here, but these photos are a dead giveaway as to where this Toad of a Grocery was caught. Before I broke the scale with this fish, it was toggling between 28 and 30 pounds. We settled on 28.

As groceries go, this was an impressive specimen for this river.



Here's another shot for perspective on size.

WOW!! Beautiful fish.

That's what springer fishing is all about. Perhaps a hint as to what you caught them on?

Wait, lemme guess.......

Sand shrimp/egg combo behind a diver?

Close.

Got the first fish on plain sand shrimp behind a Magnum Hot-N-Tot diver. Was using a big pink spin-n-glow above the whole shrimp.

The second fish was caught "hover fishing" eggs cured up in some Ultimate Egg Cure. (Not kidding about the egg cure). Tossed on a sand shrimp tail to complete the egg cocktail. My IMX 1025, Chronarch SF spooled with 12 pound UG, and a Vision 2/0 hook did the trick for this fish.

Not to start a hook war thread, but I put the screws to this fish and fought it hard for good 20 minutes. I mean rod-creaking, line whining kinda hard. Hooked this fish in the tip of the snout. All said and done, the Vision 2/0 hook is in perfect shape and is still as sharp as any hook out there. Not bad for battling a 28-30 pound fish.

Stlhdr1 lost his fish on herring behind a jet diver. He blames his Owner hooks for the loss. Apparently, since Owners are SOOOOOOOOOO sharp, and penetrate SOOOOOOOO well, he thinks the hooks pierced the fish but pulled out because he was horsing it in. Yeah, whatever. , cracker!

Now if you only grew your own rice to go with it.

Nice fish, I think I should start going shopping more.

Man, nice fish.

Parker, your IMX 1025 must have been flexed to the cork on that big one. I've got the same rod and have caught some fall kings that size on it. No more for me, to much work. I picked-up a Lamiglas Certified Pro X 90 HCT its a nice semi-lite 9 footer and hella stout to boot, with 20 main and 15-17 leader you can make em go were you want em to after the 1st couple of runs....

Nice fisheys Parker! Might be about time to come try out that rod my way Looks like a few more this year for this time!

Nice fish. Is that Cow?

Yes it was a fun day... But not the most productive of the week. Parkers springer was the biggest I've seen this year up there...

As for them Owner hooks and pulling them out of the fish, I think I'll lay off the booze on the next trip and not poor the coals on the fish. That 982 was bent to the cork, but what the heck their's plenty out there to catch...

Look forward to the river dropping and getting some summer fish along with some more springers in the next couple of weeks...
Keith