Best non-Trout Fish Caught while Trout Fishing?

My fishing partner and former colleague hooked a beaver while we were night fly fishing w/ big wets.. Fortunately, the beaver came free after a about 15 or so seconds. Hook must have just been tangled in the fur. Similarly, on another night wet fly fishing escapade, another friend and former colleague hooked a snapping turtle. Unfortunately, that one had to be brought to the edge of the creek for hook extraction. Another friend and former colleague got a cow on his backcast at Spruce Ck. That one tore free.
 
Last edited:
I caught this just below the Ball Eddy ramp a few years back on a big Clouser.
 

Attachments

  • Matt's Striper.jpg
    Matt's Striper.jpg
    51.6 KB · Views: 21
If you fish the surf and have not had to drape a rag over the chopping beak of a gull you've hooked , then you're doing it wrong 😉 Counts because their bellies were full of fish parts at the time....

Trout fishing, though? Fallfish, smalljaws, etc. I have caught the same big white sucker, or her kin, in the same spot within the spot (which often holds a big, lazy brown trout too) so many times that I have named her Karen.
 
Last edited:
~30" Northern Pike in FFO section of Perkiomen Creek in 1992. Fish obviously swam up from Green Lane Reservoir. Also caught a tanker 22" small mouth same place not even several hundred feet below where I caught the pike. I thought I had a huge brown the way it was dogging the bottom. Surprises like that is what makes it fun. As a kid, I also accidentally hooked a duck on the LL in the Heritage Section. I tried to be real gentle hoping the fly would pop out, but it didn't happen until the duck took flight. My dad watched the whole thing and was like WTH was that 😂
 
My fishing partner and former colleague hooked a beaver while we were night fly fishing w/ big wets.. Fortunately, the beaver came free after a about 15 or so seconds. Hook must have just been tangled in the fur. Similarly, on another night wet fly fishing escapade, another friend and former colleague hooked a snapping turtle. Unfortunately, that one had to be brought to the edge of the creek for hook extraction. Another friend and former colleague got a cow on his backcast at Spruce Ck. That one tore free.

I hooked and fought a beaver on the West Branch at 2-3am on a mouse pattern. Fought it for a good 3-5 minutes not knowing what it was. Jokingly told my buddy as my reel screamed up river, this is the biggest fish of my life or its a beaver. It ended up the beaver.
 
Top