Most memorable? That's a tough one.
One particular steelhead battles comes to mind though.
The story starts in the mid 80's on the Walla Walla River. It's a cold February day, but the lower Walla Walla was low and fishing well.
My buddy and I hit our usual lower river location and he marched on up river to his lucky spot. I, on the other hand, went downriver to a nice drift that produced fish.
The lower Walla Walla is slow, compared to the upper river, somewhat colored at all times, maybe 18' to the other bank, and probably no more than 6-8 feet deep.
I stood on the bank, slapped a live nightcrawler on my hook and tossed it in to the slow drift. My drift fishing gear made the uneventual drift across the seam and it wasn't until the worm made it's way to the end of the drift did I feel the "tap tap tap" of a small fish pecking at my worm.
A slight yank on the rod resulted in nothing but a chewed up worm. Stupid smolt and/or suckers!
A quick, rebait and cast, and I was back in action. Very same thing happened again. No fish in the meat of the drift, but as soon as the worm was well below me, and at the end of the drift, I got the now familiar "tap tap tap". Again, a set of the hook and nothing. Stupid trout!
Ok, now it was personal. I repeated the process. Third time had to be the charm, right? Another swing and miss for Parker!
Beyond personal, I tried one more time. This time, I made certain I just waited and waited when the fish chewed on the worm. Indeed, I got the "tap tap tap" this time, but I waited for another "tap tap tap". Thinking I was about to impale a small trout, I set the hook like there was no tomorrow.
I damn near herniated myself on the hookset. Imagine expecting your rod to fly up in the air with a trout on the other end, but instead, I hooked one the LARGEST steelhead I' ever hooked! I really do think I made this face:
The fish apparently didn't care for my antics and immediatley head for the middle of the river, if not close to the other bank. With my thumb on the spool, I wasn't even coming close to stopping it.
Over a brief amount of time, and a brief tug of war between me and the fish, it decided to just slowly works it's way back down river. I was at a location where I could not wade, as it was too deep, and could not walk down river with it. I was stuck. I watched in horror as yard after yard slowly spooled off my reel. I just couldn't stop this fish.
Finally, when there was about 5-6 wraps left on my spool, I put both thumbs down on the spool, and put my entire rod (and downriver line) in the river. I thought I'd heard somewhere that this was a trick to get a fish to stop.
Sure enough, the fish stopped, and with some brute tugging, I managed to start to gain on the fish.
I eventually got the fish up to me, and I can vividly remember seeing this piece of plywood sized steelhead surface. A damn monster! A damn ugly, dark red, green, and half dead monster, but still a monster.
I finally won the battle and the fish was way too tired after that 45+ fight. I could barely tail the fish, as it truly was a beast!
With no one around, no camera in my pocket, I said goodbye to the fish, cut my leader and let it go. I'm sure it died of exhaustion, but hey, it really wouldn't have stood a chance of surviving if I had bonked it. I saw it swim away, so I was happy.
As a boot, I'd have no idea how big that fish was. But, as a fresh fish, that fish was easily over 30 when it entered the Columbia. I'm guessing that it was a lost B-Run Steelhead. Walla Walla fish don't even remotely get that big.
PS. One of the shortest, yet highly memorable fights was two years ago on the Hoh while fishing with Rooster. I hooked and lost a 30+ pound hen on a pink worm. We know it was over 30, as about the time I realized I had a fish on, the chrome bright, fat with eggs, hen, sideways leaped out of the water, seemed to hover for ever in the horizontal position, and slowly spit the worm back at me, and made the biggest splash back in the water. Took all of about 5 seconds, but it seemed like time was in slow motion.
Rooster, who was speechless, pulled the boat over to the bank, cracked open a beer, looked me in the eyes, and said:
"Parker. Had I not just seen that fish come out of the water and spit that worm, I'd tell you you were full of [Bleeeeep!] if you told me how big that hen was!".
We guess that hen was easily over 30.
I'm gonna go home now and cry just thinking about it!
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