Finally did it! 31" Laker mark broken!!

[Chrisper4694]

Can't tell you how many hours I've spent combing the depths for a fish like this (actually i can tell you exactly how many by looking at my logs and adding them up but i wont haha) but it was all fishing and all fun and worth every second!

after gimping around for the last couple of months on a defective minn kota motor i recently had Acabtp take a look at it for me and confirm what i hoped was not the problem...a new control box (~$100 part) Thanks again for the help buddy, I bought the part and repaired the motor and finally had full control again of my boat while vertically fishing for these lakers.

With full micro-control of my boat and a perfect day for laker jigging wednesday, I invited my buddy Mark to come out for his first lake trout fishing trip in hopes of getting his first NJ lake trout. I scouted some areas before he got there and caught two fish and had 3 tails bit off...knew it should be a good day.

He jumped in when he got there later on and within 15 minutes we had him hooked up and landing his target fish! He jokingly said 'ok we can leave now' I say 'nah, i'm going to go catch a 31 incher now'...maybe 30 minutes later, after a few avg sized fish, I hook a fish that refuses to come up without ripping my drag out every 15-20 ft i get it up.

Mark goes 'that's gotta be a bigger fish...' i just say 'yup' too busy concentration on trying to balance keeping the fishes head pointing up as much as possible while not breaking the line when it overpowered my drag. Standing with the net (which isn't really safe in my little tin can haha) Mark waited for the fish. When he saw it break the surface he stretched out WAAAAAY further than anyone ever has or SHOULD in my little tin can, but somehow without flipping us, scooped that monster up like stretch armstrong!

I taped the fish out at 31" took a quick pic and as soon as i put it back in the water it soaked us with it's giant tail and jetted off! buuuut... it didn't dive right away and all the sudden, a bald eagle came swooping down towards it as it ripped across the surface! We zipped the boat towards it in hopes we could startle the eagle before it slashed the fish up and thankfully the laker dove down just in time and the eagle retreated back upwards haha. If it was a normal sized laker it definitely would've been cool to see i'll admit!

We caught a bunch more average sized fish after this but mostly just talked about how awesome this short 3 hour trip was!