Ok... how embarrassing...
I go down to the river decked out in a $1,000 worth of flies, fly rod, reel, line, backing, Simms slicker, Compass 360 waders, Orvis wading boots, etc. I catch a fish.....
If you notice , she is spilling roe as I’m holding her... bless her heart, she was ready to spawn.
Standing next to me is a friend I made, we'll call him Lucas, from Massachusetts. He came to the Salmon River with his grandpa, and his dad for a one day trip so that pops could get a couple of fish to put in the freezer. So..... I invited him and his rigged up Zebco 202 to come stand downstream on a big rock and fish with me. I had seen a few fish moving upriver and thought what the hey... I tied on a wooly bugger for him , clamped on a couple of #7 lead sinkers to his, what appeared to be about, 8 lb test line that came on the $14.99 Walmart special. Three drifts later, he hooked this 22 lb male King Salmon. With a little help from his dad and several bystanders to include myself, Lucas landed this fish after about a 20 minute fight.
All I could do is sit there and softly tear up, beaming with pride for the 11 year old kid. He was so humble after catching what may arguably be a record fish on a $6.99 reel. The grandpa got the whole thing on video and I tried to persuade him to send a snippet to Zebco for marketing purposes, to no avail. They were far to humble.
This reinforces the fact that the thousands of dollars I have spent over the years may not have improved my level of expertise or success.
This experience is indelibly burned into his mind, his heart, his soul...
Never to be forgotten.
BTW... I caught my 1st fish on a Zebco 202 in 1965 fishing from the banks of the Neches River in Noonday, Texas.