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3. FINALLY got me a nice one, big enough for a photo!

Having much of my summer swallowed up by work (consulting AND teaching!), I am now trying to play catch up on my trout fishing. I have had lots of action lately, kinda the opposite from the usual "dog days" of August, but all of my fish have been running small. Of course, the Pine River, the closest trout stream to my home, is basically small-fish water with a few odd larger ones out there that show up every once in a while. So I have finally made it over to the Rifle, Monday night at Sage Lake Road and this evening at Selkirk. Well, what a difference. Monday's foray included lots of small fish but also included one 11" brown - which is bigger than I've been getting all summer long, except for one nice 11" brookie from [REDACTED] Pond. Well, tonight this beautiful 14-inch brown came out of nowhere and blasted one of my old reliables, a #12 tan/brown Elkhair Caddis. And not too much later, I spotted another nice fish feeding, which took the same fly and turned out to be a 12-inch brown - which actually fought harder than the first because it was hooked in the belly! Lots of midges out tonight, along with a substantial Nectopsyche "white miller" hatch at dusk which brought up lots of little fish, none of whom I managed to hook - which is fine, I've caught more than my share of dinkers this summer...

Man, that felt GOOD! My "small fish curse" has finally been broken!

Jonathon

Nice brownie! Love the red spots with the halos. =) congrats on breaking the curse.

Very pretty brown, and I like the way you took the photo, especially after seeing someone else's photos of fish laid out on rocks for a picture in August. (On another website.) That doesn't seem like a good idea on a rainy cool day, much less in the heat of the summer on a stream whose temperatures can go above 70 degrees.

Louis, I always try to shoot them in the net. For one thing, you can see just how big they are from the scale in the net! It also makes it much easier to keep them nice and wet while fumbling for the camera, which I didn't have an easy time doing on this shot. Much easier to get fish pics when someone else is handling the camera!

Jonathon