Surprises

  Every time I think I've seen it all the ocean throws another surprise at me. Today it came while fishing for king salmon.
I dropped the troll gear to 200 feet deep skimming the bottom, when the line snapped out of the downrigger clip. One of the clients raced to the rod and the battle began. The King made an aggressive run burning line off the reel. I was busy clearing the other side
and getting the downriggers out of the way. Jobs done I gave my attention to the struggling client. The big king was now fighting straight below the boat. It did not run, but rather, just seemed like a huge heavy weight bending the rod completely over.
  The client worked and worked on the big king. At last we could see a glimer of king salmon silver slowly coming out of the deep.
  I had the net ready. Something was not looking right. The king was coming up head first with its tail pointing at the bottom of the ocean.
  Kings normally run in long, line stripping lunges. This King just hung straight up.
  Suddenly I realized what I was looking at. A big ling cod had a death grip on the King's tail.
  "You've got a Ling cod hanging on your King," I shouted to the client.
  We all stood in amazement as the pair of fish came out of the depths and into net range.
 I knew I only had one chance to get both fish into the net. One touch of the net on the ling cod and I knew it would quickly release its death grip and head back to the bottom.
 I drove the net deep under the pair and surprisingly came up with both of them.
  We danced around the boat hi fiving each other.
  The King was a keeper but the ling cod was too large under Alaska law and had to be released, after some great pictures.
I love the great surprises the ocean gives to those living the wild life.