A really good sign for the kings coming ashore in Chicago

Rich Zelazowski came close to landing his first chinook salmon of the season from shore on Saturday, and on Monday morning he did it in style, landing an 18-pound king salmon… with a little help from Wayne Hankins and the folks at Salmon Nightmares.

“My knees are still shaking,” Zelazowski said after leaving the Burnham small-scale fishing spot.

He caught a large king near the pipe connecting the north end of Burnham Harbor to Lake Michigan. He was using a Tennessee shad Berkley.

“I had something on the same bait for about five seconds on Saturday,” he said.

On Monday, as he tried to catch his king, he realized he would have trouble, even with the net out. The fish was big enough to stay out of reach.

Then Hankins and his friends turned to him for help.

“We landed,” Hankins said. “It was pretty epic. . . . Don’t forget the dramatic part.”

FOTW, a celebration of big fish and their stories (stories matter) in the context of Chicago fishing, appears Wednesdays in the Sun-Times.

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