Lainey-Ray Fifield, age 9, of Farmington likes fishing year-round but her favorite is ice fishing because she isn’t confined to a boat, she said Friday.
She seems to have a talent for it too. She recently caught a 25-inch, 5.5-pound salmon on a shiner while ice fishing on a lake in central Maine. It was the third salmon in the 20s she has pulled in so far this year, according to her mom’s boyfriend Nick Worthing.
Lainey-Ray’s mom Heather Bradeen and Worthing were in the tent ice shack, while she was sitting on the four-wheeler watching for flags to go up, indicating there could be a fish on the line, Lainey-Ray said.
Suddenly Worthing yelled, “Flag!”
When Lainey-Ray got to the trap, she felt tugging on the line but it didn’t feel like it might be a big fish to her, she said. The fish had taken out a lot of line though, so Worthing sat next to the hole to see what showed itself.
When the fish got to the hole, Worthing could see the hook jaw indicating a mature salmon. As he reached into the hole to grab the fish, the line snapped. Worthing pulled the fish out and put it on the ice.
Bradeen said her daughter was jumping up and down in excitement when she came out of the tent to see what the two had pulled out of the ice.
Several other people came around to see it too, Bradeen said.
Worthing, who taught Lainey-Ray to fish, said the youth has caught brook trout and lake trout before too.
Lainey-Ray hopes to have a fish replica mount, but she gave the actual fish to her grandfather, who couldn’t be there that day.
