[hooked]

In June of '85, I spent the month fishing a river in a remote Alaskan village and was doing OK with monster rainbows, Dolly Varden and 25+ pound kings on light spinning gear. One night we were fishing the mouth of the river at low tide and found that schools of kings would gather in huge pools and wait for the tide to rise to continue their run. I spotted one king that was easily twice the size of all the others but I couldn't get it to hit a spoon.

At a certain point during incoming, the water level would rise enough for the fish to race through the shallows between pools and get to the main channel. When the big one decided it was time to go, it took off and sent a rooster tail off its back as it raced through the shallow water. At this point, I dropped my rod and started running. I closed in on it about 50 yards upstream as it was entering the main channel and dove on it. I was able to get a hand in its mouth and I wrapped my legs around it and wrestled it to the riverbank.

It was half the size of your Wahoo, but my biggest catch so far.