The buck sounded and then erupted out of the water for the first time like a big, fat, powerful missile. He was in a rage and furiously shook his head to throw the hook. The hook set was planted perfectly in the hinge of the jaw. For almost a half hour the fish raced in all four directions, around snags, in and out of rocks, wildly searching every part of the hole for freedom. Even the best hook sets can be sawed off by those huge teeth, and this guy wasn't tiring out.
Time is always on the side of the fish.
If you wait too long the line can be cut by teeth, rocks, or snags, but horsing a fish is a sure way to break him off. The trolling motor was not strong enough to use in this portion of the river, and the big motor scared the heck out of him when we tried to start it up. Standing in four feet of water, my job consisted of dragging the jetboat to the head of the hole and then letting the fish drag it and me back. After about five or six trips we were both getting tired. The time had come, and Dan talked Perry through bringing the fish to the net.