Big Boy indeed. Lil fisherman, Your damn rights thats a net. A catch and release net that is. The net is the best way to quickly land a coho so it is back on its way withing minutes from being hooked especially a coho of that size trying to bring it in to shallow water to land would be hard on the fish as coho tend to go nuts once they feel gravel on their bellies it would have probably knocked himself silly or would have taken twice as long to land. As you can see there is no line or net marks on this fish and it was out of the water for no longer then 5 seconds.
Took him on a huge 4 inch flash fly with a #4 stinger hook. I was actually targeting chinook at the time as the fraser was running very clear.