guideman (US)

 My son and I were fishing one of our regular spots at Lake of the Woods, Canada in late May. This was the entrance to a very large weedy bay whose depth went from slightly deeper water coming up to around eight or nine feet. The bay was totally surrounded by thick reeds coming from the shoreline out towards gradually deepening water. As the water got deeper and approached the five to eight foot level, thick patches of cabbage weeds and coontail weeds were growing all over the place. We were throwing spinners of about 1/2 oz. in silver and white. The area was crawling with nice northern pike and we were catching them on a fairly regular basis. Most of the fish were in the three to four pound range and after a few fish, my son said that he thought he just tied into a better fish. He was fighting the fish and the fish was taking drag on several of it's runs. This went on for a while and my son was becoming impatient to land the fish. The longer the fight went on, the more impatient he was getting. I tried to talk him into slowing down but he decided he would try to force the issue. As luck would have it, the fish had probably dived into a clump of weeds as my son was pulling hard, trying to lift it to the surface. Naturally, the line went pop! The fight had been going on for a few minutes now, probably five or so, when his line broke. Well, I said we just learned another good lesson, the hard way, about not horsing a bigger fish when we are lucky enough to hook into one. I had put down my rod and had been holding the net readying to net the fish when the time came but it never did. So, I picked up my rod and threw out my spinner while my son started to tie on another leader and lure, to begin fishing again. I began reeling and could feel my spinner start to thump along when, whammo, I get a solid hit! I was using a medium spinning rod with a Garcia reel and 10 pound test line. I started fighting my fish and tell my son, I think I now have a good one on. So, now it's his turn to man the net while the fight goes on. I am reeling and slowly gaining line but the fish is out a ways and is pulling drag, too. Each time he stopped pulling, I would try to gain more line. This give and take goes on for a while and I had no intention of making the same mistakes my son had just done. Slowly but surely, I start to bring the fish in towards the boat. Eventually, the fish comes up next to the boat and my son is able to slip the net under a nice pike in the mid teens. He simply puts the fish and the net down next to me because now he's hot to keep fishing. I work the fish out of the net and grab it under it's gill plate. My spinner is completely gone it its mouth with only the leader sticking out. What's this? There is another leader, besides mine, sticking out of it's mouth, with some line coming from it. I take my pliers to open it's mouth and look in. There is my lure in it's jaw which I easily remove. The other leader and line are coming out from it's throat. I gently pull on the line and out slips the head of my son's lure, the one he had just lost! I was able to remove his lure very easily, with no damage to the fish. I tell my son that he is never going to believe what I just got out of this fish. He is in complete disbelief until I hold up his lure. We put the fish back and revived it. We then had to fight over this lure as to whom it now belongs. I guess the lesson here is to never assume that a hooked fish won't strike again, even after it had been fought for a while and had just gotten away. I just wonder if any other Bounty members ever had something like this happen to them?