Looking For Chinook

A nine hour day on the bay with a guide and another guy that I got paired up with to fish for the day produced only one salmon bite and as luck would have it, it was not my turn on the rod. We fished three rods on troll and alternated hours for "bite" and when it came at 2:30 in the afternoon, it was the other guy's turn. That bite produced a 34 pound, wild, male Chinook (King Salmon). It was an epic battle and took a chase through a field of other boats who were scrambling to get out of the way fast enough. I don't think that fish ever would have been landed without the chase- just too strong! It was a thing of beauty in the net, on the deck and in the cooler, which by the way wasn't quite big enough to lay it in there flat (and this was a big cooler). I've been trying to catch my first Chinook since 2007 and for the time being that mission goes unfulfilled. But I felt particularly fortunate to be on about the only boat that landed a fish on this day, and for my partner, who was on his first ever salmon trip- it was sooooo exciting and I enjoyed the experience immensely. Can't help wishing there could have been one more good bite- but maybe next time!