caught my fish of a lifetime. settled for a picture and let him go!

[mike_richardson]

I am really proud of myself for letting this beauty go. I know he will most likely get caught and kept and end up on someone elses wall but i couldnt be the only one to fight this fish. It was very tempting to put him on the wall. i fought him for over 10 mins with a fight full of crazy runs. aerial acrobatic. near landings, and everything you could ask for from a fish. Just a complete great time. I didnt measure him nor do i care. i am guesing somewhere around 18 but i am at the stage where the beauty and health of the fish matters more than a ruler. I didnt have the heart to keep him just to put him on the wall.

I had caught this fish the day after i found out i got a dollar and hour raise so i great weekend for me. He took a hen pheasant beadhead size 14. with the water levels lowering by day i think he may be the last big one for me for a while but we will see.

I will have the 8x10 and the memory forever. I only hope someone else gets to cacth him and give them the same gift he gave me.

keep the lines screaming.

 

[Fishidiot]

Mike,
That's a beauty - nice job.

 

[JackM]

Nice catch and beautiful coloration on that rainbow. My least favorite trout for some reason, but you cannot argue with how handsome some of them look, and fight and leap.

 

[mike_richardson]

hmm. rainbows are my favorite trout. i am totally offended. just kidding. what is your favorite?

thanks for the comment.

the only goal i didnt do so far this year was get a tiger trout on the reel.

 

[osprey]

Mike , that sure is a beauty , i think 18" is a conservative estimate , i'm bettin it's over 20. Does Portage=Bobs Creek? You don't have to tell if you don't want to , way to go man!!!!

Mike="osprey"

 

[volcanomil]

congrats and nice fish

 

[afishinado]

Great fish. Bows rule!

 

[mike_richardson]

portage= upper little conemaugh river stocked by T.A.P. we are working to get a grant or get something to clean up the lower end. when the stream passes through wilmore and such. it would be the best fishery in the area by far if we can do it. well for stocked fish anyway. i got 2 natives out of the stream and one was 9"

better than flyfishermas paradise when the water level is up. the stream is semi polluted from years of sewage and a soda factory back in the day and things like that but it is making a comeback. tons of fish. i caught 30 on sunday. i had one on bigger than this and caught one 16. lost 2 over 16. cant tell you exactly in open forum because the landowner who allows me to walk through may get mad. if a bunch of people started coming through his yard. next big rain i am going to hit it up again.

 

[TDB]

Congrats! Glad to see he was released to hopefully fight another day...

Too bad you didn't get a better pic, maybe with your fish of a lifetime smiling face.. But I'm sure you'll remember him nonetheless..

 

[mike_richardson]

:-D pretty much looked like this.

i was actually shaking after i let him go just like if i would have got a 10 point buck. The pic doesnt get the color, it actually looked like it was so red it hurt.

 

[Padraic]

That is a beautiful fish! I can only imagine how he fought. I only ever caught one wild rainbow, and it put a deep bend in an 8wt!

 

[mike_richardson]

i think he was a holdover but those colors are rediculous but he made my reel erupt just the same. I just hope the landowners 8 year old son can hook into him now. lol i am in the process of teaching the owner how to flyfish.

really rewarding.

 

[ryguyfi]

I think you're close to right on the money with 18", just by using the cork handle as a reference. Very nice fish. My goal is to catch a 20" and had one close rise to my March Brown a few weeks back and I missed the hookset....
Congrats on the nice fish, now time to get one bigger and better!

 

[mute]

Beautiful rainbow, ive adjusted the white balance on your photo so its not blued out and you can see the true colors of the fish

 

[mike_richardson]

thank you so much for doing that. my cell phone sucks at taking pictures. now you guys can see almost exactly what i did.

 

[Acristickid]

My first Letort fish.

Caught it and several others on my first visit- not too shabby. Little bit of cheating though as I caught him on a nymph.

 

[mike_richardson]

i used to think using waxworms and salmon eggs was cheatin. i caught more fish on size 14 beadhead nymphs this year than any bait ever. lol guess nymphing can be cheating

 

[jdaddy]

My first Letort fish.

Caught it and several others on my first visit- not too shabby. Little bit of cheating though as I caught him on a nymph.

That is like saying that streamer fishing on the Letort is cheating. Nymphing the Letort, or any stream for that matter, is not cheating and you should not minimize the fish you brought to hand on the Letort just because it was not on classical dry flies.

The only problem I see here is using the ultimate dry fly rod, the WT to nymph! LOL!

 

[WildTigerTrout]

Catching trout on nymphs is not cheating. It is IMO the most effective way to flyfish. Nobody likes to fish on top more than I but I catch alot more trout subsurface. I believe that many flyfisherman will agree that surface takes are more fun because you get to see the fish rise and sometimes the takes can be very visual. LOL When you really want to catch fish most of the time the most effective way is to "Bounce it off the bottom." Remember 80 to 90 percent of the time the trout feed subsurface. Nice Letort brown. I have never fished the Letort but I hear it can be very difficult.Congratulations!

 

[cmkrachen]

Nice! you'll soon realize the best thing for fish of a lifetime type catches is watching them swim back to their lairs...knowing that just maybe, they'll be a tad bigger next time!