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3. My biggest ever and the camera didn't work...AAAARRRGH!!!

Well, dang it, wouldn't you know that on the night I catch my largest trout ever the freaking camera crapped out on me!!! I couldn't get the flash to work and it was danged dark by the time I had this fish in my net...

So the night starts out with a small (7") brown on the first cast, I think alright, it's gonna be a good night, especially after I get a hit on the second cast! White millers, size 12, flitting over the water, #12 Elkhair Caddis in all white on my 3x tippet on the 7.5-foot 3-weight...well, it was hit-or-miss. A few little rainbows and browns, and these damned flies looked like SNOW FLURRIES on the water. I've run into this hatch before here and on the Pine and sometimes they go for it and sometimes NOT. They seem to fly above the water and once in a while a few bounce off the surface, but they don't seem to bring that many fish up, other than the crazy little rainbows that leap clear of the water to eat them (or miss them? Like they miss my flies at least half the time they do that...).

So it's getting darker and I think, OK, I'm going for it, on goes the old reliable #12 White Wulff, a fly I can see in the fading light, a big fluffy mayfly imitation/attractor which has caught trout practically everywhere I've fished it (including the secret brookie pond). What I think is a small fish feeding turns out to be a nice 12" brown that thrashes the surface to a froth before residing in the net for a measure, then falling off the hook as I lift it out! OK, I feel better, I got a nice one. Then I come up to a bend with a deep hole, perhaps over my head, that always ends up being kind of intimidating in the darkness - it's deep, can't quite see what's out there, where are the trees, how far into it can I cast...but I've always thought, man there's gotta be some BIG FAT ONES in there, so deep and with trees leaning over and logs against the far banks and...so I'm standing out there in the darkness, at the lower end of this hole, and I say OUT LOUD:

"I KNOW YOU'RE IN THERE.

AND I KNOW YOU'RE BIG!!

SO WHY DON'T YOU COME OUT AND PLAY???"

(It's okay to talk to the fish. That doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with you. If you hear the fish talking back to you, well then you might want to see your doctor...)

Well, a fish did answer me, I admit it. It said "GULP!!!"

The first sensation was one of WEIGHT, someone's tied a BRICK to the end of my line! Then I feel a head shaking...and it was kind of a close-range dogfight kind of battle, he didn't try to run hard or leap and thrash but laid his weight against my line, like if I pull hard enough it will just POP...well it didn't, but it took a good long time to tire him out, I couldn't move him without risking a break-off, it was pure tug-of-war at barely more than leader-range for a good five or more minutes, in near-total darkness...I had to hold this fish with one hand while fumbling though my bag for my light with the other! (Bad planning on my part!) I finally got the net under it and it almost filled it!! WOW, knew one day I would get a really big fish like his, a slab-sided 18-inch brown out in the darkness, FINALLY HAPPENED! And this during a summer when my overloaded work schedule chopped a big chunk out of my fishing season and during my recent efforts to catch up I've been overrun by dinkers...

Sadly I couldn't get my camera to work so no photo of my catch-and-release trophy...I couldn't get the flash to work. Being out there by myself, it's a major pain in the ass to try to keep a fish wet and breathing while holding a rod in your other hand while fumbling to get a camera out and focused and turn on the flash and...much easier when someone else can deal with the photography while I try to keep the fish alive and well...

Speaking of which, I did have to tire this fish out pretty well to finally get a net under it, and it was hooked a bit deep so I cut the line rather than traumatize it any further. I held it a good long time face up up in the current, and decided that since I couldn't get a photo, I would burn it's image into my brain as I cradled it in my hands in my light, cool river water flowing around it's fat, healthy, muscular, beautiful body. Eventually I slowly let it glide away back toward the depths of the hole. Then not two minutes later out of the same hole comes an 11-inch brown!

What a wild night!!!

Jonathon

Oh yeah, I bet Jonathon! ;)

I'm just teasing. Congratulations on the nice fish! I would have loved to see a picture. Often when they're that big they get pretty colored up...or maybe it's the natural high that makes them look prettier.

Next up, a 20"?

Do you still have the underexposed pics you took? You will be surprised what a little photoshop work can find in a dark image.

Didn't try to take any pictures, I couldn't see the fish on the view screen. As I said above, I hate fumbling with a camera while a fish is in potential danger of drying out and suffocating. Someone else to handle the camera would make this a lot easier, like in Kyle's fabulous musky photos!

Jonathon

This will solve all your problems - and less than a new flyrod. They are pretty amazing.

http://gopro.com/

I am lucky to fish with a photographer! Unfortunately (well...only sometimes unfortunately) I fish alone very often. Trout don't get a photograph unless they're over 20" when I'm alone. Even at that, I would have to be pretty confident I can do it quickly with no harm to the fish. I prefer to measure over photograph. Next season I am thinking I will invest in a bigger net (bigger hoop and deeper) to make it easier to keep a fish happily in the water while I fumble with a camera and measure the fish. I have a few spots where I know monsters reside.

Pryal74 is a master at solo pictures. You should see the rock "tri-pods" he builds on the side of rivers.

Creno - Good idea with the gopro. Many people use those solo fishing with very good success. That goes for videography and photography.

Well. I've had guys with the camera aimed right at me and a nice fish in hand only to have the fish give it one last good go at freedom and splash! It was gone. Only a rather weird pic of me with a surprised look on my face and no fish, or just part of it before it disappeared.

Well Jonathon, we all have our memories, at least until we are rocking away on the porch of the old folks home...Then the nurse will say, "Oh please Mr D! Not that darn fish story again. I swear that every time you tell that story that old Brown trout gets an inch or two longer."

With 3x on there you should of been able to horse him in. I once pulled my Jeep out of the ditch with 3x. :) Tony carries 10x around in his vest. Now there's a challenge. :)

Sounds like a wonderful evening sir! It's one of the reasons we fish a particular stretch of "fishy water". We dream that their in there and when they finally decide to show themselves we wet ourselves with delight.

Congrats!!!

Spence

Thanks for the congrats, guys, I appreciate it. Man, it seems like it's taken me a looooong time to finally get a fish this big, been trying for 28 years. Now watch, I'll break this personal record next summer, if not sooner...that's the way the last three years have been going for me, especially since moving up here, I've broken lots of previous personal records for size and numbers of trout (and other species). I've just found myself in a danged good part of the world to be a fly fisherman!

Thanks for the suggestions with the GoPro, that looks cool and like a great alternative to fumbling with a more conventional camera.

Spence, Tony carries 10x because he fishes with size 32 flies. Perhaps he can, but I can't see that tiny shit! BTW, the fish had taken the fly pretty deep (but not in the gills or bleeding), so my 3x was getting raked across some nasty sharp teeth...

And yes, Kyle, 20" is the next barrier for me to break. I've hooked fish that big but could never hold onto them...

Jonathon

Awesome night! Congrats Jonathan.

Well done Jonathan. Maybe you should have a reality show of your own so there would be someone else there to take the photos and shoot video of all the action ;)

Hi Jonathon! It never fails, does it! But, you know what they say, if there's no picture, it didn't happen. I didn't say that, "they" said it. Just kidding.

You know, when you got that 14er I almost started to respond with a long post about how to get away from piddlers and start focusing on mature fish. To make a long post short: It's recognizing and seeking out habitat (watershed-wide, stretch, and pool; including timing -temperature most often) and food (specific prey critters and their timing). Start thinking this way and you'll be following mature fish rather than taking what comes. Of course this is the devil's advice, if you have a family or career you care about. :)

Paul, to be honest my luck changed when I started making the drive to the Rifle River. Bigger water, more browns, and more comfortable wading past dark! There's s lot of water on the Pine that runs ankle- to knee-deep, and it's not big fish water. Of course, some of this water is nice gravel riffles full of insects and trout spawning habitat...but the shallowness makes it hard to coax the bigger ones out of there in daylight, yet there are plenty more ways to find myself face-down in the river out there in the dark...

The Rifle has a nice wide, sandy or gravel-bottomed channel that makes it easy to wade in darkness, right up the middle and pound the banks with dries, or rocket a streamer down as I'm heading for the car. Late at night with large attractor dries upstream, or down with some bigger bushy streamers on my 5-weight (or get crazy and break out the 8-weight with pike flies??), would probably smash that 18-inch record to pieces. There's about another month of decent trout fishing left and as Fall approaches they'll be getting more aggressive...so there's still time.

Jonathon

Ah! Well good luck with it Jon. Sounds like you've found your river.