So there we are, Big Fred and me, guiding a saltwater fishing expedition in Northern California when Big Boy gets the bright idea to hook up a chunk of bait on a light spinning outfit…”just for kicks.”

It doesn’t take long for the bait to get eaten…by an alien.

And let me tell you, when hooked on light gear, the extraterrestrial beast put up quite a scrap! Ron Milam, of Rocklin, CA was the man on the stick for the battle, which raged on for a good 36 straight hours. Well, okay, maybe it was more like 20 minutes, but it took a good week for Ron’s fingers to uncramp and straighten out after the encounter.

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Move over Bell Island, Alaska, there’s a new home (if all the paper work goes through) of the all-tackle world record rainbow trout: Lake Diefenbaker.

Lake Diefen…what? I know, it’s not exactly a household name — until now — but the lake in Saskatchewan has a reputation for pumping out incredible rainbows like this pending world record caught by Adam Konrad, 26, of Saskatoon.

According to the fine folks at trophytroutguide.com, the mammoth beast weighed 43.6 pounds and was 38.75 inches long with an incredible girth of 34 inches.

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Andy Martin, former Fishing & Hunting News editor and current fishing guide with Wild River Guide Service in Alaska, sent in this photo of one of his first charters of the young season.

While not a barn door-sized halibut, this 75-pound “closet door” ‘butt is about as big as you’d ever want to keep — the huge ones are a royal pain to fight & land; they don’t taste all that great and are mostly mature females that are best left alone to spawn.

This nice fish, and several “chickens” in the 20- to 30-pound class fell for a Berkley GULP! squid tipped with salmon belly. The action was off Montague Island, which is a long, 65-mile run out of Seward.

The first part of the run is nice (inside Resurrection Bay) but the rest of the way can be subject to nasty weather and big ground swells because (trust me, I’ve nearly puked there a few times!) it opens right up to the Gulf of Alaska.

It’s often worth the run, however, as the halibut, ling and coho fishing can be out of this world!

Prior to his spring trip to Canada’s northwestern coast, Ron “Millman” Milam of Rocklin, CA, had never landed a steelhead over 8 pounds. Now, thanks to this beast (and many others) that he caught on eggs under a float, he’s completely ruined for life…

I always go to B.C. in the spring to chase steelhead with my pal Gill McKean of West Coast Fishing Adventures but I couldn’t make it this season. Oh well, doesn’t look like I missed much…I mean, if you think a 20+ pound steelhead on the fly is any sort of a big deal.

Bill Seaman, a longtime client of McKean’s, was the lucky guy who caught my fish. Nice work, eh!