I was on Fontenelle on Thursday and it was the slowest it has been all season. Not one bite in 6 hours where I normally do good on browns! Around 5:00 pm a guy came over on his snowmobile asking me if he could borrow my auger as his auger burnt up before he and his friend had all of their holes drilled. I told him the fishing (or at least the catching!) had been very poor. He was setting up for the night shift in hopes of catching some ling. Around 10 minutes later he returned my auger after drilling some more holes. While we were talking I was jigging my small, Kastmaster/crawler about 6 to 8 feet off of the bottom. I suddenly felt a very large bite and saw a big fish on the graph. I was rather surprised after not getting a bite all day. The fish felt big and I thought I had hooked into a big brown. After a short battle the large head of a ling appeared in the hole. The guy, who borrowed my auger, reached down and landed the big ling for me. It was 37 inches long and the biggest ling I have ever caught! I didn't have a scale to weigh it. I normally don't keep ling, or many trout either, so I asked the guy if he wanted it. He gladly took it as he and his buddy were trying to catch enough ling for a fish fry this weekend. That fish gave him a good start and I'm sure he was glad to have been there at the right time! I didn't even think about taking a picture of the ling so I don't have any pictures.
