BLAST FROM THE PAST: Former Silver Valley resident hooks the big one

EDITOR’S NOTE: BLAST FROM THE PAST is a weekly article where we turn back the clock and see what was on the front page of our local newspapers years ago.

This unchanged article ran on the front page of the April 20, 1994 edition of the Shoshone News-Press. If you remember this story, or other BLAST FROM THE PAST articles, let us know by writing us or commenting online.

HOPE – Jim Eversole hooked the fish of a lifetime Monday afternoon.

And he hasn’t even been fishing that long.

Not only was it the largest fish the Ponderay man, and former Silver Valley resident, has ever caught, it was also the largest Mackinaw ever pulled from Lake Pend Oreille. Oh yeah, one more small item – the 43-pound, nine-ounce, 47 1/4 inch long Mac is the biggest fish ever reeled in from the deep waters of Lake Pend Oreille. The biggest. Ever. Of any species. By a long shot. No one even close.

The fish was officially weighed in at Holiday Shores Resort in Hope where it will be displayed for a time after it is stuffed and mounted.

It broke the old, biggest-fish mark set in 1948 when Wes Hamlin of Coeur d’Alene caught a 37-pound kamloops. As for Macs, the former record for the biggest one pulled from Lake Pend Oreille was a 28.8 pounder in the 1993 K&L Derby by Paul Wilson of Priest River, which won the Mac category in the spring event.

Eversole is in the hisotry books of fishing on Lake Pend Oreille, and probably will be for some time.

“I knew I had something real big the minute it hit the line,” Eversole said. “ I told (Bud) Neumiller, ‘we got a lake record, I can tell.”

The catch came about 1 p.m. near Pearl Island. Eversole, his friend Bud Neumiller and his dog Spudd were trolling in his 19-foot Bayliner at about two miles an hour with the depth on their down riggers set at 100 feet.

The trio had been out since about 9 a.m. and their efforts paid off when Eversole’s line, which sported a 3-inch Daredevil, red and white spoon, began pealing off the reel.

For the next hour on this sunny day, he and the giant Mac waged war and for a while it wasn’t clear who would win.

“It was a wrestling’ match back and fourth,” Eversole said with a smile.

Finally, near exhaustion, Eversole got the fish close enough so he could use a gaff hook to pull it on board. Call it a record at 2 p.m.

“I saw it, and it looked like a horse that had shoulders,” he said.

Eversole, a former miner, retired here five years ago from the Silver Valley. His fishing career began on 1991 and he’s already known more success with the reel and rod than many veteran anglers.

He took third place in the K&K Derby Mackinaw category last year when he hooked an 18.12 pounder. In July, he reeled in a 21-pound Mac, the best for the month pulled from Lake Pend Oreille.

What’s his secret to success? How does he hook all these Mackinaws?

He’s not telling.

But he does give one helpful hint to ctaching big fish.

“We’re pretty much out here all the time,” he said. “You just have to be in the right place at the right time.”