Salmon's Revenge
Shortly after I moved to Wisconsin in the late '70s and before I started fly fishing, I thought that I would see what snagging salmon was all about. Snagging was legal at that time and a popular river was the Kewaunee just north of Two Rivers, Wisconsin.
I drove without rod or reel to the Kewaunee one Saturday, to a popular spot. The banks were line were lined with snaggers (they certainly weren't fishermen) throwing large treble hooks with a center core or lead for weight. The line was about 50 lb. mono on a large spinning reel and with a short stiff rod.
One particular fellow was a caricature of the prototypical snagger, and he was bragging about how many salmon he had snagged. After finishing a beer he proceeded to toss his line in the river and was shortly on to a large salmon. He loudly announced the best way to land a snagged salmon was to tighten the drag down all the way and to back away from the river instead of "fighting" the salmon in the usual way.
He proceeded to back away from the river in a tug of war with the salmon. The 50 lb. mono was as tight as piano wire and stretched to the limit when the hook came loose from the salmon. He had about 50 feet of line out and the 1 oz hook came back like a guided missile and hit him in the shin with the sound of a baseball bat hitting a telephone pole. He went down like he had been shot, and in a manner of speaking, I guess he had been. He had to be taken to the hospital, and I suspect that he suffered a fractured tibia.
So I guess what goes around comes around. It was the one and only time I ever went to a river during the snagging season, which fortunately been outlawed in Wisconsin. But whenever I think of snagging, I can see that 1 oz of lead flying through the air and I hear the whack of metal on bone, and I just smile at the Salmon's Revenge!
