The release

The kid and I woke up early this morning. The alarm went off at 0400 and I laid there in bed trying to figure out what that noise was. My brain grudgingly clicked on and I got up. Loaded the car and woke up the kid, we were on the road to the fishing hole. Now it has been 90+ degrees here for the last 5 weeks or so, so we were in shirts, sweatshirts and flip flops. When the sun popped up, all we could see were big thunder heads and it began to rain. This was going to be an interesting day.
We went about our work, setting the lines out and readying the anchor rope bag and other tasks. Our hog-line neighbors were pretty amazed to see a 9 year old girl doing all this hog-line boat work. I am not, cuz if she doesn't she has to swim back to port. After an hour or so, I think I dozed off, only to be awaken by that lovely sound of an angry reel. Our lure had done it's job and fooled the wily steelhead into investigating a bit too close. The reel clicked as it tried to stop the fishes first run. I jumped up, kinda dazed, and picked up the rod, the action on the rod was gone. Our neighbors said something along the line of, tried to fool ya didn't he. I gave them a shrug and pulled back on the rod, trying to get the plug working again. I didn't feel anything, not the weight, the plug, nothing. I kept reeling, HEY! the fish is on the line and running right at the boat. I hand it off to the kid, only to find out it has run across my other line and we now have two rods fighting this one fish. The kid pumps and oohs and ahhs at the steelhead thrashes it head back and forth on goes on a couple of good runs. She gets it close to the boat and I see that it is a decent fish, probably close to 12 lbs or so. Nice fish, I pat the kid on the back and say do what you gotta do to keep em there I'm getting the net. As I turn back to the stern with the net, she says he is gone. I look out and sure enough, the fish had escaped her. No biggie, she got to do the fun part at least, the battle. Heck, what do we need fresh fish for? Come to find out the fish had plain straightened the hook on the lure out and got lucky enough to not have to take a tour of my net and get his picture taken.
That was our only chance, I have been giving the kid a hard time about loosing the fish all day, but truth be told, she did awesome and made me proud.