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3. If only it was a wild fish...

First sizable fish for 2012 for me

Nice catch! Looks like a chunky and solid splake. How big?

It's still a nice catch, even for a stocked trout. It must have been around a while.

Mark

That's a bruiser of a brookie. Not many that size that didn't get a good start on pellet rations.

Hey, I have that same rod -or at least in the same T&T line.

Paul: Yeah, I'm sure she ate more than her share of pellets...surprised she even knew what a yellow stonefly looked like...That's a T&T LPS 8' #4 I got it for an unbelievable price a few years ago when they were discontinuing the two-piece rods.

Pryal74: Don't think its a splake, but I'm not sure, I don't think the PA raises those critters. As for the size, the distance from the end of the reel seat to the top of the handle is 10.5" so that fish probably went 18" but it was thick.

I'm not one hundred percent on it, but I'm pretty certain. It has some tell tale signs, the head, the spot pattern on the lower sides and the lesser shown vermiculations. I could be wrong of course. There's a northern river in the U.P. that has them. Here are a couple of photos of some splake we landed from a smaller river.

Splake or not..some great looking fish id say!

Those are some great looking trout, but I'm bewildered as to how you guys can tell what's what. I've mistaken trout species all my life, and splake just mixes things up all the more!

Some handsome lunkers, I'd say. The length gives them a pike-ish look almost!

Some very nice looking fishies there, boys. Yes, Spence, trout opener here in Michigander-land is not too far away...but, there are kayaking opportunities for trout opening up with the melting ice, so I'll be getting some "pre-openers" any day now! If ya wanna try some, I can get you a borrowed kayak. And, although [REDACTED] Pond won't open until regular season does, we should be seeing some of these giant brookies in there within a few years.

Of course, four hours of flycasting for steelhead last night produced...nothing.

Jonathon

I tend to agree that PA stocks brookies but not splake. Im no expert either but the squared tail on this fish screams brook to me. I always thought of splake having a slight fork in the tail. The pictures posted suggest so as well. Great fish no matter where it was caught.

@ Spence, I'm not sure what you're getting at all. Also, not everyone up here speaks in that dialect, thanks goodness.

The pictures are just to show a comparison. It's a great catch Crepuscular landed. I wasn't trying to offend or get into a battle with anyone.

Sorry Jim...Just trying to be funny and maybe over the top here. Didn't mean to offend. Really.

Spence

NO sweat man. I could tell you about a steelhead trip last spring where almost EVERYONE we ran into talked like that though. I still have a good laugh about it.

You're not offending me, ( I don't think that's possible). And I didn't see it as an argument. Who knows what those guys at the PA Fish commssion are up to? It never even crossed my mind that the fish could be a Splake. I found the obervation fascinating, just what I needed, another distraction from what I should be doing. As if the weather and the fact that I've been seeing Hendricksons for the last two days wasn't enough. It gave me a chance to try and do a little research on what genetic lines of trout the PA Fish commssion actually breeds. Of course, I came up with conflicting answers (about other crosses and genetic lines of fish) but nothing on splake.

No Eric...I was talking about a post, that I have since pulled, where I was poking a little fun at my Yooper cousins...Not you. Back when I was still in college and working midnights to pay for it I would skate at a local ice rink in the morning after work with a group of seniors who where originally from the UP. They adopted me and I was invited to their Christmas party and their end of the season party before they closed the rink down for the summer months...I was a bit over the top and trying to be cute with dialect etc and got called out on it...It should of been a PM.

Jim and I have straightened it out and I'll try and behave myself here, eh...;)

Spence

Spence, with regards to Yooper-speak, all I can say is, Oh Yah, some of dem doo talk like dat up dere...I suspect it's a bit of leftover Scandanavian accent from some of the early settlers. Y'all think that sounds funny? Try a deep southern Georgia drawl, or a New Englander accent (let's pahk da cahr an' go to da bah...). Or the butchured Mexican names in Texas that I had the misfortune to hear after I had learned Spanish in the Peace Corps (don't even get me started on Chilean "Spanish"). Hey, they all probably think WE talk funny!

Reminds me of a funny interaction I had with some Chinese folks at my favorite bass pond in Ann Arbor. The wife of the family started babbling away at me in Chinese and I was about to say, "I'm sorry, I don't understand", and then she stuck her hands out in a gesture of fish size! Suddenly, everything was clear...

Jonathon