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3. Redemption, Page 2

Louis that's a big fish on a dry fly.

My thoughts exactly. I typically streamer fish and have never caught one that big.

Uh, wow you must be able to fish some awesome waters if you can suggest that a 22"- 23" fish on a dry fly is not a "lifetime achievement". For many guys on this forum I'd venture to say a 21" fish on a dry would be cause to break out the champagne. I consider myself to be about as good a dry fly fisher as the next guy and in my entire fishing life have only caught two browns, on dries, that hit the 24" mark. One 24", and the other 24.25". In the 22" - 23" range maybe I've landed a dozen, maybe a few more, but for every one I caught I was estatic and extremely pleased with myself.

Will post pics of two 22" - 24" browns on the Photography forum. It's easier for me.

Louis, that's a big trout on a dry fly. (My dry fly PB was about 18 –a brown.)

Big fish may or may not be more difficult to catch than smaller ones as that has as much to do with the lie they occupy, the sky and water conditions, or the hatch circumstances, than to the fish’s inherent cagey-ness. Maybe we just like to think that they are indeed a cunning adversary because we like to think some of that says something about us as anglers. Nothing wrong with ego –it’s part of the mysticism that kept our ancestors alive, and we, casting. But big fish also rub a little honest merit onto their captors too, most basically bc of their rarity; One most probably has logged some serious hours on the water to have caught such fish.

But after one has logged those kinds of hours, and the ego isn’t insatiable for other reasons, and perhaps mellowed with age, there is real peace, wonder, and beauty beneath it all that requires no explanations.

However, we still measure. Just what we are measuring is the question.

Congratulations, Louis. That's a special fish. You've earned it.

-Shawn

Congratulations on that fish!



Was that the Galloup's Cripple? My favorite spinner by far.

Many thanks for the comments, guys. Shawn, it's good to hear from you; let's fish this summer if not sooner--you know the hatch.

Matt, I've only caught one other brown this big, on a nymph, and bigger steelhead, also on a nymph, but I didn't really have any idea about how often some catch browns this size or bigger on dries. I knew you had caught a number of very big fish, for example. It certainly was a special moment for me, and brought exactly the same kind of peace, wonder, and sense of beauty Paul describes.

Jason, yes it was, and the experience brought back to me your comments on Galloup's flies from a long while back. I actually still have the modified Ellis triple wing spinner you gave me. But I'll be tying and fishing the Galloup cripple a lot more from now on.

Good idea.

It's an amazing fly for matching spinners... crooked body, single wing in the surface film, very much more life-like than the typical spent spinner on a single straight hook. I don't remember ever having a fish that refused a reasonably sized Galloup's Cripple during a spinner fall and then took something else.

I think it's an even better fly as a searching pattern on calm water or when the fish are being finicky/cautious but not selective to a single hatch. I can't count the number of times I've had fish rise to and refuse a gaudy attractor and then gulp the cripple pattern. I know some people like to use a parachute adams, griffith's gnat, or black ant for that purpose, but I think this one is better.