Hopefully Stan will allow me to use up some bandwidth with this post..it may interest some of you that fish.

   We just got back from a week at Enemy Swim lake in Northeastern South Dakota. We've been going there for 20 years and really enjoy it. I'm kind of a hack fisheman, but my wife and our daughter Lindsay are pretty serious about it. I'm usually relegated to 'guide' service, which is fine with me 'cause serious fishing is a damn lot of hard work as far as I'm concerned!

   Anyway, we spent the first 3 days dodging storms and tornados..not a lot of basements at the lake, 'ya know? By the 4th day, the fish were starting to bite. This lake holds some huge Northern Pike and it's believed that the next State Record will come from there. The current record is 40lbs. even.

    I believe that I had just such a fish on my line...really.

   I was fishing for Northern in the classic manner taught to me by my Dad...shallower water, work the edge of a weed bed with a red and white Dare Devil and have a steel leader on at least 20" long. My rig was a small Quantum Ultra Light rod with a Fenwick Titanium Lite reel and 6 lb. Fireline with a short 10" leader, as I wasn't expecting anything over 2 lbs. or so. I should have remembered Dad always saying to rig for big Northerns even when fishing for small ones!

     After the hit, I loosened the drag completely as he ran for the weeds and the new Fireline on my rig cut my index and 3rd finger almost to the bone as he spooled it off the reel.

   To make a long story short, I got him within 10 feet or so, but he finally got enough angle on me that he was able to roll and cut the line in his gill plates...I should have had a 20" leader. If Dad was still with us, he would just be shaking his head!

   I heard later that two other fisherman had tied into a huge Northern on 2 different times in the same weed bed area. One of them got it to the side of the boat and estimated it's weight in the mid 30 lb. range or bigger.

    There you have it..a true fish story!   -Al