Retiring from trout fishing now...

sarce

sarce

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 16, 2013
Messages
1,504
Not really, but maybe retiring from the stream where I caught this.

In advance of the rain yesterday I headed out to a favorite wild trout stream. After catching a 22" here last year and getting broken off earlier this year by an 18" range fish while nymphing, I started fishing this place exclusively with big streamers and heavy tippet (0X or 16-lb hard mono). It's a small mountain stream so essentially I just hit the big pools, drift along the undercut rock ledges, and hope for the best. Many, many times this year I have gone fishless doing that, aside from a lone 17 incher a few months ago. Yesterday wasn't quite that slow, but then in the last pool of the day, I hooked into an absolute monster.

Thankfully I didn't actually see the take, if I had, I have no doubt I would have blown it somehow. But I could quickly tell this was a big fish, over 20", but until I got it close I didn't really see just how massive it was. The fish made some short, powerful runs back under the rock for about 2-3 minutes before seemingly realizing she was not going to win.

I quickly moved a couple small rocks around and created a little holding spot for her to recover in the water while I took a few photos. The fish was about 25" and fat and healthy as could be! Just absolutely stunning that a fish that old in a small stream could still have that much weight. I would guess 6-7 lbs. That's what prime habitat will do, I guess!

She was nearly ready to go back when I finished with the photos but given the fact that the water is low (though still very cold in this particular stream) I held her back to revive for a few extra minutes to be safe. Finally she had enough of that and with a big splash of her tail soaked me in water and swam back to her lair.

I highly doubt there's a bigger fish in this stream...but it has been full of surprises these past two years so who knows! And no, I will not give info on the location ;-)
 

Attachments

  • queenofthestream.JPG
    queenofthestream.JPG
    133.4 KB · Views: 4
  • head.JPG
    head.JPG
    123.4 KB · Views: 1
Nice job! Yep...hang that rod up on the wall next to the pic of that fish...your job is done.
 
Great job. Beautiful fish.
 
What a beast! Awesome.
 
That one will be very tough to top. Great fish
 
If a stream has habitat, and is known to have some browns, then I'd never write off the potential of that stream to have a few big browns in it. Nothing reaching 25" yet for me, but a pair of 17" fish on two different small streams at night, maybe flowing at 1-2cfs this summer solidifies the belief that I already held that small streams harbor much larger trout than many anglers suspect.

Definitely a nice fish - is there a pathway to a larger body of water anywhere downstream or a source of potential stockers that is close? Or are you 100% confident it is wild?
 
Impressive dedication and focus. That is one terrific catch.
 
Congrats!
 
Thanks for the comments guys. I certainly don't expect to top that fish in any similar sized stream.

Salmonoid - it is possible in theory for a stocked fish to end up where I caught this one, but a few things make it very unlikely. I fish it along with 3 friends - they fish it a couple times a year and if conditions are right I'm there once or twice a month. Combined we've caught at least 10 definitely wild fish over 16". 3 (now 4, assuming mine is wild) were 20" or better. So there's a good crop of large wild fish hanging out in basically every deep pool, and one or two growing exceptionally large isn't too far fetched if you've seen how fat some of those other wild fish are.

If a stocked fish wanted to swim here, it would have to go about 4 miles down one stream and about 3 miles up this stream. It's steep but not impossible in high water. However it would have had to swim through several epic deep pools to get to the pool where I found this giant. I'm not sure why a fish would pass up any of the lower pools.

One possibility is that a previous landowner could have stocked a handful of fish. It's public land now though and has been for a while. I have to be careful about discussing the stocking history of the stream though, doing so could easily give away the location.

I'm leaning heavily toward wild - but a fish that size, I wouldn't say 100% certain. It does have some traits that you'd see in a long term holdover stocked fish. I think it's just old and has relatively dull colors. Knowing the pool it came out of, this fish never had to work for food in its life.
 
I also am in total agreement about these small streams. This one probably is running around 5 cfs the past month. By now I know pretty much every rock slab there is hiding one or more big fish. Getting them to show themselves in daylight is just a matter of hoping they're awake for a few minutes when I have a fly in the water.

After a few disappointments losing the big browns there I gave up completely on using anything lighter than 2X. I caught this fish on 16 lb hard mono tippet and a size 2 streamer tied on a big jig head. I think tippet size is the most overrated thing in fly fishing. Before the big guy I landed a 12" brown with the same setup. Crystal clear water and 16 lb line did not faze a 12" fish
 
sarce wrote:
I think tippet size is the most overrated thing in fly fishing.

Me to.
I use 15lb test tippet when fishing streamers in the Cumberland Valley streams.

A fish to remember indeed - nice job!
 
After reading the write up I expected to see a huge brookie, lol, beautiful fish, nice post.

I would assume the tippet issue is dependent upon fishing pressure.
 
Great fish time on the stream definitely pays off . :pint:
 
I'm thinking that's a really nice brown and you did good landing it. Nice pictures too, but I think it's a stockie, just lacks color and the tail looks ragged.
 
sarce wrote:
I also am in total agreement about these small streams. This one probably is running around 5 cfs the past month. By now I know pretty much every rock slab there is hiding one or more big fish. Getting them to show themselves in daylight is just a matter of hoping they're awake for a few minutes when I have a fly in the water.

After a few disappointments losing the big browns there I gave up completely on using anything lighter than 2X. I caught this fish on 16 lb hard mono tippet and a size 2 streamer tied on a big jig head. I think tippet size is the most overrated thing in fly fishing. Before the big guy I landed a 12" brown with the same setup. Crystal clear water and 16 lb line did not faze a 12" fish

I fish every freestone brown trout stream with rock slabs or a crevice as if each one holds one or more browns. I'll pretty much guarantee that if it's a Class anything stream, there's one or more browns under the rock or in the crevice. When you start treating streams like that, you also find that there are big browns under some of the rocks too. They always were there, but when you expect they are there, instead of just tramping by, you actually fish a stream along the edge of that lone rock in an otherwise featureless pool. Even knowing they are present in a stream, I sometimes am still surprised at the locations they come out of.

The epitome of this for me is about a half mile of a freestoner. Most of the bottom is flat shale. But it has the errant angular rock here and there, and regional fracture systems create a few cracks that are at angles to the stream flow. Every time I enter this stretch, a little voice announces to me that I have entered Brownlandia.

Here, you can see one of those cracks (this is looking downstream). I learned from my mistake of ignoring that seam as I fished up through and kicking a nice 16-18" fish out of it. Towards the tail of the pool, you can barely see what appears to be just another shallow shelf of the shale bottom.

B2f4Znlb4qYZJaUprJlnyeBX3tA_-f3KgQ2LCmvwn6P8owAb0MDt8klbddAZ23IXQNCsgtyhAT4iMQt0LmyjgH2xo8gihvO1RVqBrSzwcDXYS4CEdy904lLsrqyvgEhCvwP3MA0JVPbi2UMmOum3KW3PM_XpL0iDpqqeGjCafpNfDbG21sI0Jt6iYEr1OmVJY4TUjFusxoPSOjnKCwJwSb1nWSfNmyjREz5mBbbsBuwDjtW7UH5gkhQ6ovUvsuBDYXoWDF_yWYlD9ydDmM_QwKUuyDVdk98Qvw-Fszjiks-LsXTGfVnzqa-9lkGfNpuCPc50B0P-PAcBYN-SnlMBiXw-ngnn4-rAVkY2MrR4vTBx3jKuppRC8FQhlRT9_cft8NIf0CWtm4CD4FN0G9kd0jtcVkX9H9ObXgbQlowYX7brtmotj29h53eTOTweHL4gSMa6-Arsz9j7i_2Xr273p5SVObkvxVX-sIz_a8NOiZZQ-l1AYnX3vt5AqcsPdkaXM5lG8BIjuhq3fijcI51L7fvIumhCPgex-5cdRXqPEQ5KiC_BZ1I3TXDUX1goOiDkBdReSywT8IUfNyQ3-Xc1fgHEWimrFEa04u-Blb4ReEsB8paZcQ=w1560-h878-no


It's actually a rock that has sheared off along the bedding plane from somewhere upstream. It's not much, but it is the feature in that mostly shallow, flat pool. It had three fish over 16" under it this past May.

rxRisonWCBP0Lt-Y-ZqXoSNmMP2PxewDo6DKBPKH6oWT6E0__o4W_6ZLPrVuAGDx9bdoCawUZdonfSiHs7Th3ChyF0D0Xg279llUgT79Rot8trPP3f42DX-T40AilW3gtEqJEYE4upBQL4s_OK7R2GspHhm9C4vIuFf6aMYu9OeaRKyziVVTgU-oLW7sun43oDm9RcllasSI-oP_xClFJzqBu4rU5WbMLAlgJ-YmQtqLGXe7aIUhUR7dD0nXnZ42w-hUZHNJ_ArzvJB8ZjGL5_eiwJnFwcZGP8YSoJY45w1Jc8Vl1vwm8emDL0UVs7B7cxg6bGMhDmEW3D9ub9-uxoeJWx5VCY3Wl9ffpfZf5yntxvhlK5uNgxg9bJ4eWySP8hnYqakpCEhoF9dUBaFJytADnMwdNrgRPF7mKpGQPfNTy6GQhVo4AhOPqvblMhwA6JYAGlEQh5JD5s6wVJLbO0nuxwmuvpPId9PFwn4NYq-aCA1Rkld_r4s8ctEpwyojaHKXC6g7fTO6UPPcQYs7gcNdgfCUPsOvWhlWWfllHalWxT-Ln4b4wtLApTrdYfrfN2_W7AsUC-QYNmNhppiJxeY4onkhQgjIw_KOTcI87WvTYFjt9g=w1560-h878-no


After I was lucky enough to get caught on the stream during a major thunderstorm in May of 2014 (and lucky enough not to get struck by lightning or pinned by a falling tree), I fished that stretch as the water was coming down. It produced a fat 18" fish. Just upstream by about two pools, I had missed another large fish earlier that afternoon, when the water was even higher and muddier (that muddy water brought the fish out to feed from their mostly featureless homes).

2iLT3RrsJzfVZRd6wMW0oe3KfkpqxG7DGwYzzwBMZVxs5UHui9jRnKh2D7jJEWykbfVx2u3VRz-wZVifD6r_BxInZJ5_47iAdaHN3AOHQCe8aCIC8mao40UGtMoFasPfPOy8UxEqwELpP68KRQ0zXU-_en7Z-5__PeXQol0lXY1lsP9apUbcqsfEBU5F0GhrCiCu0Ir__YjcxVG-LAPGb7mCaK7vcyEVY7gWqdHRmQ9mrFhF-z0xoNs_PZRG7_8ouq8wMjkFM9Ugr0FtnFb-Z59HzVda3rt8XljLOAnaTtw8lZMvg7GLHSZwoSOk7KH0w8niME2jgn7JqQHOF_XA6ax2roLve3oMw6LvNh1DHLFmhcc2e4O37l8v6IETwM_kk0CjEpC3gnUmIj-QDF5lPxfDrdz8e1HLJr4IEumk7W7T8EmSWJ9pB_txDwp0dSZaJ_OI788z1l8vdIWCAf75TNKKJtRSK3DQchrgmFuVS1HD4KANJWO-k07mWaUItSdfK7PMKqB8DObL49aoG5TcF99ZmoiTLZIAXIruxGzSrJTFCYwDNHSS6fO7mxwO1CVOvTJ60uQOGJ8f2IGHyKT8rAjnBgV623DK6fbuxYqFFneCEN8xXQ=w1560-h298-no



That little stream stretch produced a really nice 18" fish in early fall of 2012, just above the crevice in the first photo too (it's the stream stretch that looks like a slight riffle on the left side of the thunderstorm photo above). I never even saw the fish or had a clue it was there - it was just sitting in the current, probably holding on the bottom, tight against the wall. Yes, it really is only about a foot deep, but it fooled me, that first time at least. I haven't had lightning strike twice on that particular seam, but I attempt to get that tingle, as I fish it every time now.

LZOTxo9ttq_hcauciPoJ53zcLyfXzDJPINbZAx3sSqqt35WXoV5_cA7YCjN_--CNszU5d2k6f361nD6yt2K0PbXqlbQe3A3XECpw5WEkIjcuvlkBPE35DstZZX8LLEgy0tksmWA62rOQQMDnsTVzTSZZXz0fE8akM4UrJTQnoK5Mo0sGbtcQGyjt18JAnkv_1SvNqLCmmXr9M4b4H8gfoCemO62aYiDMmTT0vkk4VKN-OdndTiNrDaXnziS7bp6OFCRYq6lDMnzdgqNF63CSb6SHByyGLZUtnRCUgFc3P625I9DIa_BSmP0kx9JeOtfLTZ_-l1yJwyGSWIOWnApG28G2WG-XgpuAT5bnLcSgJGoDL36CdtURolpZTe2M5nQVGV7HN5sLy2AQS8c9Q6Dvs-jL4KM22yxdfpleZx4zRgn1qcaV5oJ5UhryHdrzjv1ElxT68AYSC33AGcph29Dm3kRXEVEo1vFxI82YSVCfDrIh5t9ZO5E7BRIG0Jgm3ZsYxzWb4R8vVn8wtpR_hD-sA8cCgKgwi4Dbf-yrAMWFz6Io0BYISAeCu0-Xq8A2Mt5HL0ugLzKCpYLOr9mrJJt8bGQtmjQtd-tVklByR275WQsrCZi2=w1560-h934-no


Standard tippets that I always have for streamer fishing are 0x and 2x (governed by night-time tactics and the fact that I got some nice big rolls from STP a year or so ago). Half the time, I forget the smaller stuff, which makes for fishing smaller dries a pain. I often end up using 3x or 4x, just because I happen to have a couple extra spools of that (better chance of those spools being in the vest or pack I'm using), and the premade leaders I seem to have an abundance of are tapered to a finer tippet size. But I probably should just buy short stout leaders that end in 0x and be done with it.

Clearly, big (or larger small) fish are also not just a night game either. I've caught some fish on freestoners on bright-sky bluebird days, at or around high noon. I think chances are better after dark, but being in the right place at the wrong time with a somewhat decent presentation will sometimes yield a surprise strike. One 15" fish came out from a rock for an offering one day, at about 2:45PM, under a bright blue sky and fell for a Deceiver the next day in the afternoon as I was on my way out and headed downstream. My 22" brown from this year came just before 11:30AM, on a bright sunny day too.

Sometimes it pays off to throw out conventional wisdom and not be confined by it.
 
Salmonoid the stream I fish has some similar pools, though not as wide. Big rock slabs and undercut bedrock ledges. And yep, each one has a fish or five.

Chaz, might not show in the pic, but the tail didn't have a single knick on it. And the adipose had red around the edge. Pec fins were about the size of my palm and showed no signs of wear and tear.

What gets me is how fat it was. I was talking about this fish with my friend today and we're thinking given the history of this place, it may be a strain that the previous owners decades ago were selectively breeding for big fish. So the stream may have only wild fish now but the gene pool has been artificially altered for big fish...that's our theory. That, or the habitat really is just THAT good.
 
Dave W, interesting you go that heavy on the CV streams. I think those would be considered pressured fish. The stream in my post here is not heavily pressured fwiw. I generally follow the rule of use as heavy as I can and still have the fly move naturally. A heavy streamer can be tied with a loop knot to allow for heavier tippet
 
Mike and others have previously said that it is very difficult to tell wild from stocked brown trout when they get that large and have been in the stream for a long time. Key indicators such as red spots and an eye spot may not be present in a wild fish of this size. The fact that the fish is as healthy as it is for this time of year makes me lean toward wild. All larger holdover trout that I have caught appear to be deflated and lose a lot of mass as they transition from a protein rich diet of pellets to terristrials and the occasional chub on freestoners.

Awesome fish regardless!
 
Wow! That's what dedication gets you, I guess! Nice work. I imagine that there are some fish approaching that size in my local waters, but I don't believe I have the dedication to ever find one. 25" is a heck of a trout! Might have to switch to salmon fishing after that fish!
 
Back
Top