We were fishing out of Minipi Lodge. It was mid-afternoon. We were cruising along the shoreline 30 feet out paddling our way toward the mouth of Shisler’s Cove. The only sound was the slap of water against the bow of the boat. I had my finger on the trigger, which means I was holding a #8 Gray Wulff with the curve of the hook pinched between the thumb and forefinger of my left hand. I held the rod in my right hand cocked up over my shoulder with the line snubbed against the cork.

Right at the entrance to the cove, about 30 feet ahead, I spotted a rise just off the face of a large rock. I immediately released the fly and cast it 3 feet to the left of the dimple. It settled on the water, cocked up and floated high and dry. When it disappeared, I stood up and set the hook. The fish ran parallel to the shore toward the mouth of the cove. Then it made a powerful, abrupt surge to its left and the open water of the lake.

My rod bent into an extreme C-shape and the next thing I see is a great swirl 60 feet from the boat. Then another 75 feet out. “Something’s wrong! She’s foul-hooked. She feels sideways in the water. She feels like she weighs a ton.“

I held my 10-foot, eight-weight high and reached for the reel handle. I retrieved about 6 feet of line. I pumped the rod and took in another 6 feet.

“There’s gotta be something wrong,” I said to the guide. “This doesn’t feel right. I can’t move this fish. Gotta be foul hooked.”

“Looked like a clean hook up to me,” said the guide.

Then, as I got the fish closer to the boat – about 5 feet out now — a huge tail emerged from the water and then a huge black body surfaced. My knees were knocking.

“Oh, my God, look at that! What th’ hell is that? I gotta have this fish. Get the net.”

“A pike!” yelled the guide. “And he’s too damn big for the net. Would tear it to pieces. We’ll have to try to beach him.” He used the paddle to ease the boat slowly toward shore.

Fifteen minutes later, we had brute in against the rocks. But when the guide reached out with the leading edge of the net and tried to flip him out of the water, the handle bent and almost broke. That’s when the pike released his grip on the brookie.

The guide netted the brookie and dropped him into the bottom of the boat. He was a 3 ½ pounder. He was dead, bleeding from a deep, horse-shoe shaped wound spanning his entire flank.

Back at the lodge, the guides measured that wound – it was 7 ½ inches across.

To this day, there is speculation as to how much that monster pike weighed. Estimates range from 25 to 35 pounds. But whatever he weighed, he was and still is the biggest freshwater fish I have ever almost caught on a fly…well, using bait.