Angler Breaks 53-Year-Old Coho Record on His First Trip Out

Minnesota Capt. Kent Paulsen had a banner Labor Day on Lake Superior. By 7 a.m., David and Chris Cichosz, the husband-and-wife duo he had on board, were well on their way to a double limit of lake trout during their first-ever outing on the lake. So, they shifted gears and started targeting coho salmon (also known as silver salmon). Within minutes, they had a pending state-record coho in the net.

“We already had a bunch of lake trout in the boat, so I set up trolling for cohos with dodgers and flies,” Paulsen, 39, tells Outdoor Life. “I got the lures down about 50 feet, just above the thermocline in 80 feet of 50-degree water. At 7:30 a.m., a hot fish hit and pulled about 100 feet of line off the reel drag before my angler, David Chihosz, could get the rod and start fighting the fish.”

It took about five minutes for Chihosz, an ex-Marine from Wabasha, Minnesota, to bring the fish close to Paulsen’s 33-foot Chris-Craft boat, the True…