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I caught my first-ever lower American River king yesterday on Samhain's eve, an amazing fish, a fish I pursued with grace and gentleness and intelligence and love and so much different from the snaggers that flossed salmon in spawning tails downstream of me, where one "fisherman" - only one snagged a fish - strung up his "catch" on a rope and let the poor fucker suffer alive with the rope through his face for several hours while the snagger tried snagging more. My king was a fish of dreams for the species, with a beautiful rosy hue interspersed with sheets of chrome, fat, straight and sleek and perfectly angled fins, bursting with the full-blown ardor of adult salmonid love, connected to me consciously through the spinner I swung through his holding water, his thoughts fused with mine when he attacked the spinner (different than the artificial connection when a snagger slams his hook into the body of an unsuspecting fish), fought well, tailed, held docile and submerged while I set up my camera equipment, then a quick series of shots, and finally a sweet, solemn release. It was a perfect relationship.