B
Brown71
Active member
- Joined
- May 15, 2013
- Messages
- 285
With much debate about the topic of 30" browns on here, I wanted to post this story/pic.
On Friday December 18, after good soaking rains on 12/17, my Dad and I went to one of my favorite big brown spots, one I have referenced on here several times on other big brown posts. It is a very small trib, that runs into a much larger body of water, and as I said before, year after year the big browns come here. You gotta a few times a week, most days you find none. And when they do come, they are in and out - quick! Making them very easy to miss. It has been a slow fall at this location to this point, I only ran into a few large ones here so far this fall, and only caught one other one, although it was nice at 26".
In the past, 1 of my 2 career non-great lake 30"+ browns came from this very place, and I have seen others that I have not caught in that range also, so there is always a chance here if you have the obsession and persistence t stick with it and keep going even though many days I walk a mile or two and come back empty handed.
Today was different. The water was just up enough that you couldn't really see in the deep, but was that perfect "fishing" color. I walked about 1/4 mile or so, not really getting into much other than a few strikes. I came to an area that in the past has held some of these larger moving fish, and in the riffle at the head of the pool, I caught wind of what looked like an extremely large fish moving in and out of the riffle. As stated before, vision wasn't perfect, but it was enough to know it was large, very large. I crept to a better location for casting, and began drifting. I have a lot of luck with single eggs in the fall and particularly in this type of water condition, and after only 2 or 3 drifts, I watched the fish swing from its invisible lair to the riffle where the egg was floating down, and whack, the float shot under. I set the hook and immediately knew this was a bigger fish than I even thought. Anti climatically though, the fight was very short, but good for me in that instead of going downstream where brush may have been an issue it took a quick run down that way then inexplicably turned, shot straight upstream beyond the riffle where it was hooked, and beached itself in the shallows. It jumped around but could not get back in the current, after only a 30 second or so fight, I walked up to it and slid it into the bank.
I was instantly stunned at its size, albeit spawned out, it still had some shoulders and was extremely long. I called my Dad who was a little above and he came down and we taped it - twice actually - it was right at 31", both times. It ended up my largest EVER non great lakes trout, and 3rd over 30" from PA non great lakes waters.
I hope some enjoyed this story, a little too long, but I tried to include some details. Notice the size of the stream.
On Friday December 18, after good soaking rains on 12/17, my Dad and I went to one of my favorite big brown spots, one I have referenced on here several times on other big brown posts. It is a very small trib, that runs into a much larger body of water, and as I said before, year after year the big browns come here. You gotta a few times a week, most days you find none. And when they do come, they are in and out - quick! Making them very easy to miss. It has been a slow fall at this location to this point, I only ran into a few large ones here so far this fall, and only caught one other one, although it was nice at 26".
In the past, 1 of my 2 career non-great lake 30"+ browns came from this very place, and I have seen others that I have not caught in that range also, so there is always a chance here if you have the obsession and persistence t stick with it and keep going even though many days I walk a mile or two and come back empty handed.
Today was different. The water was just up enough that you couldn't really see in the deep, but was that perfect "fishing" color. I walked about 1/4 mile or so, not really getting into much other than a few strikes. I came to an area that in the past has held some of these larger moving fish, and in the riffle at the head of the pool, I caught wind of what looked like an extremely large fish moving in and out of the riffle. As stated before, vision wasn't perfect, but it was enough to know it was large, very large. I crept to a better location for casting, and began drifting. I have a lot of luck with single eggs in the fall and particularly in this type of water condition, and after only 2 or 3 drifts, I watched the fish swing from its invisible lair to the riffle where the egg was floating down, and whack, the float shot under. I set the hook and immediately knew this was a bigger fish than I even thought. Anti climatically though, the fight was very short, but good for me in that instead of going downstream where brush may have been an issue it took a quick run down that way then inexplicably turned, shot straight upstream beyond the riffle where it was hooked, and beached itself in the shallows. It jumped around but could not get back in the current, after only a 30 second or so fight, I walked up to it and slid it into the bank.
I was instantly stunned at its size, albeit spawned out, it still had some shoulders and was extremely long. I called my Dad who was a little above and he came down and we taped it - twice actually - it was right at 31", both times. It ended up my largest EVER non great lakes trout, and 3rd over 30" from PA non great lakes waters.
I hope some enjoyed this story, a little too long, but I tried to include some details. Notice the size of the stream.
