Papa's Birthday Fishing Excursion

I treated myself to a birthday present--a fishing trip to Idaho with Del Moody, his son-in-law and my best friend in High School, Clyde Marquez. I visited Clyde 3 weeks ago when Priscilla and I went to Idaho Falls for her 40 year class reunion. He told me then about catching a 9lb fish from Henry's Lake earlier that week. That got me excited enough to suggest I come back in a couple of weeks for my birthday and go after some big fish. As Del Moody is a true blue fisherman (and also has a nice fishing boat), I invited him to go along with me. We ended up not taking his boat as talking with Clyde prior to leaving, he said he felt we would do fine from the shore. We arrived at Henry's Lake around 4:00pm Thursday and rigged our outfits up according to Clyde's instructions. Clyde suggested that the fish usually start biting around 6:00pm so we set our poles in "rock" holders and just keep a watch on them. For two hours nothing happened--not a single bite. We were having a nice chat when Clyde yelled out excitedly about Del's pole heading toward the Lake. We all turned around in time to see the pole and reel airborne into the lake. There was no chance to catch it or retrieve it. Del was not a happy camper losing a $200 fishing pole and reel. He headed back to the truck to get another pole. Not wanting to experience the same fate, I pick up my pole and held it (it was now 5:50pm and "time for fish to bite"). After a few minutes I got a strike and set the hook. As I played the fish in, a fishing pole surfaced with a broken tip (Del's). I reeled in the pole and took hold to find the fish was still on Del's pole. The fish had apparently drug the pole around and eventually crossed my line which was probably 60' out from the shore. Anyway I pulled the fish in and landed him with the help of Clyde. We estimate the fish to be around 13-14lbs.--fat and beautiful. Since this sounds like a wild fish story, I attached the photo of the fish along with me me holding the broken pole.