Tom I third the sentiments. Very nice fish!! Jim
On 7/30/07, Tom Davenport <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I was fishing a local reservoir yesterday (Birch Creek for those of you > who live in Utah) for Tiger Trout (a hatchery hybrid between Brook and Brown > Trout). I had never caught this particular variety before and my fishing > buddy , who had experienced a great day of fishing for Tiger's on this same > reservoir a couple of weeks earlier, said catching one was a "sure thing". > > > We started fishing around 7:30 AM and and by 10:30 hadn't even had a > strike. We could see big schools on the fish finder but they were pretty > deep in the warm 70 degree water, but they weren't eating. In spite of the > warm water, we decided to fish the shallows near some weed beds and were > encouraged to see a heavy Calibaetis hatch underway. My buddy immediately > began catching fish on a small Wooly Bugger pattern with a green bead. > > I put on some smaller patterns without the bead but wasn't getting > anything. My buddy offered me some of his flies, but my pride said "no". I > tried on a few more without much success and after he had caught his sixth > fish, I swallowed my pride, rigged up with his pattern and quickly had a > fish on. Fishing was pretty fast for 13" to 15" Tigers when suddenly a > twenty-six inch monster took my fly! It was a long battle on my five weight > rod and to make matters worse I didn't have a net (normally I just bring the > smaller fish in quickly and pop them off the barbless hooks). > > > Landing the fish was a big problem. I tried grabbing the tail but this > fish was two slippery. I tried lifting the entire fish on the stripping > apron but it would flip off. Finally, in desperation, I carefully slipped > my fingers under its gill plate and found there was a lot of room and it was > pretty easy to avoid touching the gills. We snapped a few pictures, > revived it the best we could and let it swim away. > > I was excited to catch such a big fish but felt bad that I was unprepared > to do a better job to help it survive. I seriously considered keeping it, > afraid in might die no matter what I did (because of the warm water) but I > didn't have anything to keep it in. > > > My buddy says "Well, if you kept it it would be dead for sure, at least > this way it has a chance for survival." That's true enough, I guess. > > > Here are a couple of pictures I have posted if you are interested in > seeing the fish: > > > http://homepage.mac.com/tsmd/PhotoAlbum23.html > > > Tom > > > My Daughter's Name Art website: www.wishberrie.com > Home Page: http://homepage.mac.com/tsmd > Webshots Albums: http://community.webshots.com/user/tsmdav > > > > > > > >
