This is a repost from something that happened a few years back. I remember it like it was yesterday.
There are a few streams here in the Ozarks that I frequent and prior to the current drought, we had years with lots of rain and heavy flows in all our streams. The fish put on some major growth during this period due to constant flow of food and good water.
This story will represent how much growth these fish can attain during these great conditions.
During this period, I was fishing a few of these streams on a frequent enough basis, I was targeting larger fish and actually walking the high banks prior to stalking. I can tell you that I thought I knew most of the fish and where they lived. I had not caught them all, but I had spent time watching them in the deeper holes. Yeah I know, I spend too much time on the water!
One day when the fish were not showing themselves by either hanging deep or in the undercut banks, I was blind casting a deep hole. As I was changing flies, I caught movement in the water in front of me. I stopped what I was doing and laid my eyes on the largest trout I had ever spotted in this particular stream. Where had this fish been? I know I had never spotted this fish as it was much bigger than I had ever seen. Goes to show you how elusive these Ozark trout can be in some of these small rivers. And she just shows up right in front of me! No stalk necessary!
Anyway, I lost my composure a little as this trout simply slid into a feeding lane not 15 feet in front of me. As I prepared to start casting, I honestly thought that I would only get a cast or two before I spooked this fish. As I laid my first cast down, the fish did not spook and was in a normal feeding mode. To my surprise after multiple casts, I was not affecting this fish. It could have been the angle of the sun or something but I can tell you that I was very close to this fish while it fed. In these small streams, I had spooked many fish from a much greater distance.
The fish continued to feed and ignore my flies. She was reacting to my flies, but not in the right way. Maybe a look here and there but mainly avoiding my presentation. This went on for two hours and I never so much as shifted my feet. After using every nymph and midge in my box, I retied the first fly that I had thrown two hours earlier when this all started. The drift was good and the fly drifted by without a look. I thought this was another repeat drift but after the fly was a good foot behind the tail of the fish, she turned, swam downstream and inhaled my fly. Then all hell broke loose. The fish shot airborn, charged a brush pile, and dove to the bottom trying all the tricks in the book. I honestly don't know how, but I got this fish in a net. In fact that is all I did. After getting the fish in the net and snapping a couple of pictures, I got the fly out and prepared for a picture out of the net. She decided she had enough and slipped through my hands and back into the deep hole and I watched her swim unharmed into the brush pile. I sat on the bank and was in disbelief of what had just happened.
There are a few streams here in the Ozarks that I frequent and prior to the current drought, we had years with lots of rain and heavy flows in all our streams. The fish put on some major growth during this period due to constant flow of food and good water.
This story will represent how much growth these fish can attain during these great conditions.
During this period, I was fishing a few of these streams on a frequent enough basis, I was targeting larger fish and actually walking the high banks prior to stalking. I can tell you that I thought I knew most of the fish and where they lived. I had not caught them all, but I had spent time watching them in the deeper holes. Yeah I know, I spend too much time on the water!
One day when the fish were not showing themselves by either hanging deep or in the undercut banks, I was blind casting a deep hole. As I was changing flies, I caught movement in the water in front of me. I stopped what I was doing and laid my eyes on the largest trout I had ever spotted in this particular stream. Where had this fish been? I know I had never spotted this fish as it was much bigger than I had ever seen. Goes to show you how elusive these Ozark trout can be in some of these small rivers. And she just shows up right in front of me! No stalk necessary!
Anyway, I lost my composure a little as this trout simply slid into a feeding lane not 15 feet in front of me. As I prepared to start casting, I honestly thought that I would only get a cast or two before I spooked this fish. As I laid my first cast down, the fish did not spook and was in a normal feeding mode. To my surprise after multiple casts, I was not affecting this fish. It could have been the angle of the sun or something but I can tell you that I was very close to this fish while it fed. In these small streams, I had spooked many fish from a much greater distance.
The fish continued to feed and ignore my flies. She was reacting to my flies, but not in the right way. Maybe a look here and there but mainly avoiding my presentation. This went on for two hours and I never so much as shifted my feet. After using every nymph and midge in my box, I retied the first fly that I had thrown two hours earlier when this all started. The drift was good and the fly drifted by without a look. I thought this was another repeat drift but after the fly was a good foot behind the tail of the fish, she turned, swam downstream and inhaled my fly. Then all hell broke loose. The fish shot airborn, charged a brush pile, and dove to the bottom trying all the tricks in the book. I honestly don't know how, but I got this fish in a net. In fact that is all I did. After getting the fish in the net and snapping a couple of pictures, I got the fly out and prepared for a picture out of the net. She decided she had enough and slipped through my hands and back into the deep hole and I watched her swim unharmed into the brush pile. I sat on the bank and was in disbelief of what had just happened.
I was truly lucky to be in the right place at the right time. I am also not sure why this fish let me throw over her head for two hours without spooking. Anyway, days and weeks passed and I thought about this fish a lot. I did not get a tape on her but I have tried to use the net from the picture above and determine a length. Once I got this fish shallow and in the net, her true size appeared. She was much bigger than I thought..... and a fish this size just should not be in this creek.
Weeks passed since I had caught the fish and one afternoon, something hit me and I got curious. I had never seen this fish...or I thought. About a year earlier, earlier, I had caught another fish about 'three holes' to the south on this same creek. At that time, I thought I would never land another fish bigger in this creek. The first fish was large but was about three inches and a lot of girth shy of what I had recently landed.
I can get a measurement from this fish by using the rod in the picture. It is a strong 22 inches.
They are both female, they look similar but they should since they are the same species. The color shades in the pictures are accurate and the bigger fish had more of a green color to it. I got out the microscope and did DNA on these fish. It is called the zoom function on my photo software. They are the same fish! Caught one year apart, this fish had put on some nice growth.
How do I know they are the same fish. The spots on a trout are like finger prints. They don't move around and it's enough evidence to me that these exact spot markings on both of these fish are proof that this fish has put on about three inches and plenty of girth in twelve months. These two pictures show an obvious exact match on the spots. The first picture is the fish prior to putting on the growth and the next picture is the later catch. Exact match.
"The finest gift you can give to any fisherman is to put a good fish back, and who knows if the fish that you caught isn't someone else's gift to you?"
Great story
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