Confessions of a newbie - first ever salmon!

[MuskieBait]

Congrats. Once you catch enough, you will be experienced enough to land them within a few minutes with no fuss.

In the future, set you drag properly before you even make your first cast. You don't have to set the drag too tight. You need to allow the fish to run to use up energy. Pulling a fish in on a tight drag will land it way too quickly and the fish will kick and thrash too much on land. That can be quite damaging to the fish. On the flip side, you don't want to set the drag too light so you allow the fish to run too long. A fish that took too long to land will expend too much energy and develop lactic acid build up. It is not good for their survival.