Reigning Browns

[PatrickC]

Hit a favorite PA wild brown trout stream yesterday. It had rained for several hours and was raining pretty hard when I got there. I was surprised how low the creek was for this time of year. I drove a long distance to get there, so I figured I'd at least take a walk and see what the rest of the creek looked like.

The rain continued and after another hour or 2 of pounding rain the waters began to rise and the creek was staining up nicely. The water temp was reading 58-60F everywhere I checked it. So, I tied on my trusty #8 olive BH woolly bugger and started making a few casts.

Within no time I was brining in the typical 10-12" wild browns this creek has to offer. I was casting a pool I have never caught anything out of when something huge exploded as soon as the bugger hit the water. My little 3wt was bent and the CFO was singing. After a brief tussle I netted a gorgeous 18" wild brown.

I was completely beside myself. I had caught some 13-14" browns in this creek before, but it's not a fertile stream. I didn't figure there were any really big fish around.

I lit up my victory stogie and walked on up stream. I didn't figure the day could get much better. As I approached another pool I had never caught any fish in previously, memories of the last pool were swirling through my head. I sent my bugger sailing to the bubbling riffle at the top of the pool and another big explosion happens. The CFO was screaming again. I'm in complete disbelief at this point. I worked the fish to the back of the pool and netted a 17" fat toad wild brown.

Surreal, is all I have to say about yesterday. Huge fish on a tiny creek. You just can't beat it!

 

[gulfgreyhound]

Very nice. Gotta love those browns and their colors. Rising creek turns browns on,like a dinner bell. GG

 

[JackM]

That's one of the bluest gray spots I've ever seen. Nice fish.

 

[SBecker]

Nice fish Patrick.

 

[SurfCowboyXX]

High water brings out the beast. Good job.

 

[PatrickC]

JackM wrote:
That's one of the bluest gray spots I've ever seen. Nice fish.

I've been trying to focus my pics in on that stuff this year. How many pics can a guy take of a fish laid out in a net? Zillions obviously, but I've been trying hard to photograph some of the qualities that make a particular fish unique. One of the things I like about these macros pics is that you don't always know just how great a shot is until you process it. My thought was the same as yours. I had no idea just how great that spot really was.

I attached a photo below I took a few weeks ago. Even when I took this pic, I did realize how unbelievable the subject was. I had no idea this thing had these colors. I thought they were charcoal grey. After a closer look, this millipede is dressed-up like superman. Who'da thunk?

 

[McSneek]

Again - very cool pics and some awesome fishing. Can't believe anyone made it out yesterday in that weather.

 

[Maurice]

Patrick,

Are you messing with the levels/contrast/curves/histogram settings on your "processing" of these photos Esp #1,2,4? The colors seem very hot and the 1/4tones gone. I notice this with alot of your pics. You either have a camera with a poor CCD or you are tweeking them.

No offense, just curious.

 

[PatrickC]

Maurice wrote:
Patrick,

Are you messing with the levels/contrast/curves/histogram settings on your "processing" of these photos Esp #1,2,4? The colors seem very hot and the 1/4tones gone. I notice this with alot of your pics. You either have a camera with a poor CCD or you are tweeking them.

No offense, just curious.

All I do is sharpen them up. I don't mess with the colors any. Just my thing. It's how I see them. Kind of like the difference in how DeYoung and Weaver paint their fish completely differently. No offense taken bro. We all see and like to see things differently.

Here are the adipose fins of the 2 big browns:

 

[Maurice]

Ahhhh, the sharpen tool. gotcha.

 

[PatrickC]

Not being a professional photographer and not having the time to really take it up, I don't know what all the "Sharpen Tool" does. I just personally like it. I'm all ears if you want to share some knowledge on what's really happening there.

 

[troutbert]

Maurice wrote:
Patrick,

Are you messing with the levels/contrast/curves/histogram settings on your "processing" of these photos Esp #1,2,4? The colors seem very hot and the 1/4tones gone. I notice this with alot of your pics. You either have a camera with a poor CCD or you are tweeking them.

No offense, just curious.

Many digital cameras are designed to "punch up" the colors, i.e. saturate the colors quite a lot.

For the same reason Fuji Velvia was the most popular film with magazine photographers and publishers.

Because people like exaggerated color.

Many wild browns and brook trout do have very strong colors. But I think many digital cameras punch up the color excessively.

If any technically savvy photographers have tips about getting more realistic color in photographs, let us know.

 

[PatrickC]

Thanks T!

 

[pcray1231]

Personally, I like natural pictures the best. Let the place and the fish do the talking! The secret is to find beautiful places and fish. Tweaking to make things prettier than they are feels like lying to me.

But if you are going to tweak to make some sort of artistic point, I do like oversaturation of colors moreso than the super high contrast that I see some people do. Too much contrast makes it look like an oil painting and not a photo.

 

[Maurice]

Sharpening is an effect where adjacent pixels of differing value distance themselves even greater. For instance; each pixel in an 8-bit image has 256 levels of gray. 0 being BLACK and 255 being WHITE. the closer each adjoining pixel is to these extremes presents greater contrast on the edges of detail. Kind of like a checker board.

Anyway when you hit sharpen it takes a pixel value adjacent differential of say 155/128 and makes it 160/123, sharpen more takes it to say 170/115. each color in a 24-bit photo (RGB) has the same color range of 256. each one evaluated and adjustments made.

Its kind of like posterization on the edges.

Its a near affect but if overused it looks doctored. Thats what I noticed. But I was off on just how. The color of your flesh on the hand was a real clue. Sometimes I get that straight off the memory card which is why I asked. The CCD gets a weird reading tries to compensate and juices the color in shady situation like under canopies shooting sunlight greens get very hot, tans turn pink.

Nevertheless, nice pics and brownie.

 

[wildtrout2]

Nice pics Patrick. Beautiful brown! I also enjoy taking pics of some of my prettier fish and some of the out of the ordinary. Here's one I've not seen the likes of, with 4 eye spots.

 

[PatrickC]

Cool. Not sure I have even noticed 2 before. I'll start paying more attention to that.

 

[streamerguy]

Beautiful fish! For some reason when it comes to wild trout, I seem to take a picture of almost every one I catch. They are just so colorful. Stockies I can care less lol.

Checked out your blog also, I'm pretty sure I fished the same stream as you today. It was high and muddy of course, but thats usually when I have my best luck. Black streamers were the ticket. Got one bruiser and a couple little guys.

 

[PatrickC]

Hmmm. I cropped those pictures down to avoid just that. You must know every rock of every creek you ever fished ;-)

 

[streamerguy]

LOL. I'm not 100% sure, but from looking at your blog post and past ones I kinda figured it out with some hints. ;-) Again, not positive, just guessing.