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!

Beautiful fish Chris. awesome job! You put the hours and effort in and definitely deserve the reward. Bald eagle experience was icing on the cake with a good outcome except maybe from the eagle's perspective. Congrats again my friend......you deserve it! Next stop........35"! Time to get a bigger boat.

[NJSquatch]

The White Whale has been found!

A Big Congrats man!! About time the pond paid out.

I kinda want to know how many hours you have put in. I will never forget when you pulled the hook on that fish you couldn't budge. That has to be over a year and half ago.

[thmyorke1]

YEEEEEEHAW! Great to hear

Beautiful big fish, glad you finally hit that measurement.

Congrats!

[akoop]

Congrats Chris, your time and effort really paid off!

[Hookmanski]

WOW! What an accomplishment man. I feel like I've been following your laker posts for awhile hoping you'd find the one, now you have! Congrats on the awesome fish. That eagle story is really cool too, what are the odds of that happening on this fish??? Way to go dude. I'd love to get out there with you sometime and catch my first laker!

[ScowardNJ]

Thank goodness you finally caught that thing. Been hearing you whine about it for far too long now

Congrats dude!

[acabtp]

that's awesome dude very nice fish
glad to hear that took care of the problem on the motor
and the eagle encounter to top it off... sounds like everything came together on that trip!

[nate01]

That’s an insane catch....beauty of a fish. You owe that eagle some French fries or something

[DanH]

AWESOME!!!!! Hard to believe these brutes are in NJ waters!