Fishing has been something I have enjoyed to do since I was about seven. Whenever my family went camping or had extra time at home we would go fishing. In the last few years since my dad bought a boat, we now have a permanent site at Brennans Beach and I have learned how to fish on Lake Ontario. My favorite time of the year to fish is when the Salmon are getting ready to make their yearly run up the river. This year was very special; I will always remember the following story.


One day early in Salmon season my dad, a friend of our family and I went out fishing. We left the campground at 6:00 am and trailered our boat to the boat launch in Port Ontario. It was cloudy and rainy; I really didn’t think it would be a very good day on the lake. My job when we are fishing is to drive the boat so my dad can get all the equipment set up and ready to go when we saw the fish on the monitor. We get out onto the lake and my dad has all the lines set; all we need now is fish on the screen. After trolling for a short time we had a fish on the line! Since our friend, Dick had never caught a Salmon before, my dad yells to him to grab the pole and start reeling. Now mind you our friend is seventy-four years old and basically the biggest kid I know. All my parents’ friends say they all want to grow up and become Dick someday. He is such a kid at heart and so much fun to be around. Salmon fight a lot when you catch them; just when you think you have them near the boat and ready to net they take off running again. Catching one is a really good workout, especially since they are still so active out in the lake. Well by the time Dick got the rod in his hand, the Salmon as ran almost all the line on the reel out. He is yelling, “I’m almost out of line!”
My dad throws the boat into reverse to try and keep the fish from snapping the line. Dick starts to reel line back in only to have the fish run on him several more times zigzagging back and forth. This fish fought for over ten minutes; my dad kept saying that it has to be a big one. Finally Dick wins the battle and the Salmon is so exhausted we manage to get it in the boat. As soon as we got it in the boat we knew it was the biggest one we had ever caught. My dad weighed it the fish; it was over twenty-three pounds. If you could have seen the look on Dick’s face you would never forget it. He looked like he was going to explode, he was so happy. My dad tells everyone he turned a seventy-four year old into a seven year old in ten minutes.
Dick kept saying, “I can’t believe its that big!” I have never seen someone so happy and excited in my life. This fish was so big it covered the entire bottom of our fishing cooler. It was over thirty six inches long.


We continued fishing; an hour later we had another fish on, this time it was my turn and I was all fired up because I was getting to reel this fish into the boat. Unfortunately, my fish was not as big as Dick’s fish. I had my fish in the boat in five minutes. It was a Steelhead, which is a rainbow trout that has gone out into the lake and grown to a point that it has lost its rainbow coloring. My fish weighed seven pounds that I would later find out is very big Steelhead. I have caught big fish on the lake before but this was the first one I reeled in all on my own. I was really happy I did all by myself; with all my other big fish, my dad had to hold onto me or take over for me cause I couldn’t reel anymore. Now each got one and we had enough fishing and we were getting hungry. We had a great day on the lake; now it was time to go back to camp and show everyone our catch of the day.