Your best wild trout in 2024

[JimKennedy]

Took 5 fly changes but finally got it to eat an 18 BWO dry fly.View attachment 1641238257

Is that a glass rod?

 

[scottrum]

Some of my personal best wild brooks in 2024

 

[rustbeltwilds]

long hen yesterday another best of 2024 not the most colorful...but longest wild for this cat.

 

[Broodstock]

long hen yesterday another best of 2024 not the most colorful...but longest wild for this cat.View attachment 1641238504

Excellent fish!

 

[Nympho]

Is that a glass rod?

Yes it’s an Epic 580

 

[wcosner2]

Best two so far

 

[JoeDas]

Caught my personal best trout out Big Spring early summer. And last week I caught my personal best native while exploring a small stream

 

[Schaefer406]

I barely fished this year due to work, so here is my best fish of last year (was caught in November so within a year of this post 😂)

 

[HopBack]

I caught some nice browns this year but I think anytime you catch a brook trout over 10” in a freestone stream its pretty special.

 

[HoboWithAFlyRod]

Saw my pb today now I just have to catch it

 

[5footfenwick]

Saw my pb today now I just have to catch it

Might have to pick off his two little friends first 😄

 

[wildtrout2]

Caught my personal best trout out Big Spring early summer. And last week I caught my personal best native while exploring a small stream

That native has some of the brightest reds I've seen on a wild brookie. Very nice!

 

[FlyGuy9]

Best wild brown of 2024 - I wasn’t expecting this 20”+ Upper Delaware brown on a 85 degree early June afternoon.

 

[JimKennedy]

Not a trout, strictly speaking, but certainly my best charr of the year. Big Spring. Black and yellow marabou streamer based on the Pennsylvania smallmouth buck tail streamer.

Also not a trout, but my favorite of the year. It’s likely wild, but may have been stocked as a young of year. My crew caught many young wild landlocked Atlantics. This was the only good one I caught, and it fought just like the old timers talk about. Red San Juan worm 18 inches behind a grasshopper. Connecticut River about half a mile below first Connecticut Lake, New Hampshire.

An actual trout! And a Maryland monster at that! Grasshopper pattern. A rare day of dry fly fishing for me. Big Hunting Creek, lower canyon area. Essentially the same size as most of the wild true trout I got this year 8-10 inches. That brookie at the top of the page is actually bigger than any brown trout I got this year.

I promise to try harder in 2025.

Quick warning: big hunting is big only compared to little hunting, which is narrow enough to pee across in many places. Both are fine wild trout streams, and worth the drive if you are less than 90 minutes away. Any farther and you will be better served looking for wild browns closer to home.

 

[wbranch]

This is the one I was most excited about, certainly:

View attachment 1641238439

Where did you catch the laker? Or is it a secret?

 

[hooker-of-men]

Where did you catch the laker? Or is it a secret?

I got 5 or 6 during the Lake George smelt run. Not a secret, but tricky to get the timing right.