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Went out this morning and headed up north in Illinois to about 60 FoW on a beautifully calm lake. It was just the wife and I so we did not get out really early but setup in an area I did good on silvers last year (sorry I forget the coordinates at the moment). The first fish I would have sworn it was a king - it was pulling drag and doing the head shake. Got the fish to the boat and it was a Laker but it was an amazing fight. Threw him back after getting a picture. Next line went off and again it was a hard fighter but was not sure if it was silver or a laker. It ended up being a monster brown but ended up loosing him in the net. He was actually too big for my net so I was attempting to get the head in so I could flip him up but he got loose. Next line went and it was another good sized laker and another hard fighter shaking his head, taking drag and everything. End up landing him and before I could get him out of the net another line went off. Got that line in about 1/2 way and another pole goes off. So we have two big lakers to fight with only me and the wife. We ended up landing both of the fish and I was beat so we called it a day. Was pulling in the second to the last line and my planer with the thin fish starts to pull drag so I figure it had to be a coho. Start pulling it in and it is just not fighting so I am thinking maybe a smaller laker. Get it close and I ended up with a big plastic bag of some sort on the line DOH!!. By this time the winds were picking up and had to get back to Hammond/Whiting. It was a long rough ride back home. It was still a great day out fishing. I threw all the fish back but what a blast catching them monsters.

Way to go Ed!

Real nice fish and really good pix. A lot of good photographers on the site. Wife not catch anything?

Nice job Ed. Looks like you had a action packed trip.

They are some nice looking lakers. Good job

Nice work Ed!

Don't know if you were using braided line or not but on braid, those deepwater lazy fighters give a great battle. All my downrigger lines are switched to 20# braid once more than 30 or 40 feet of depth is required to get to the fish.

Nice Ed. Great pictures!

Nice job Big Ed!

Steelie wrote:

Real nice fish and really good pix. A lot of good photographers on the site. Wife not catch anything?

Well it was a joint effort on all. The first one she reeled in most of the way and I netted it. Then we switched back and forth but I did all the netting. She refuses to be on the other end of the camera so you are stuck looking at my ugly mug - sorry.

BNature wrote:

Don't know if you were using braided line or not but on braid, those deepwater lazy fighters give a great battle. All my downrigger lines are switched to 20# braid once more than 30 or 40 feet of depth is required to get to the fish.

I switched all my dipsy to braid beginning of last year and that is what all of them came in on. I have one wire rod but it didn't do anything yesterday. I have to switch my riggers to braid - most likely over this winter once they are ready to be restrung. Thanks for the advice _ didnt think about braid on the riggers, but I do run 50# mono on those so at least they should stand up to a large fish.