Cedar River Fall 2002

Another charity shot for Brian here. This is actually one of the northerns I caught on Sunday night. I caught two this size (just under 30"), this was the first. The second one was a disaster. It gave me the best fight of any fish I've ever caught out of the Cedar. When I finally lugged it in, Brian "netted" it and I was trying to retract the hook when he launched out of the net and started taking drag again. After a brief second fight and another landing, I decided to just put him on the stringer first. I'm not sure of the exact order of events, but just as I got the stringer into his mouth, the fish lurched, Brian hit me in the head with his pole and lowered the net, and the fish, and the magical lure that had caught all the big ones over the weekend, were gone. Brian could argue he had a bigger disaster story when he was reeling in a big pike, that story is with another picture.