Born to Be Caught

While definitely a long shot, I asked Gayle to let out some line, to see if we could entice the bigger one into making another appearance.

Sure enough, it turned up again, but not unlike the first time, didn’t come very close to the boat.

For the next 10 minutes or so, she let the small trout out about 10 to 15 feet, and reeled it slowly back to the boat.

Each time the big one would come up for a look, and even seemed to be getting a little closer every time we tried it.

Finally, after about 4 or 5 tries, the fish grew a pair and swam up right beside the boat, and the minute it did, I slammed my net into the water and scooped up what turned out to be a 26 pounder.

I took a couple of pictures, then put back what was the biggest fish I had ever caught just using a net!

The next morning I took my guests to the same area, and before long, one of them got into a good fish that weighed in at 29 pounds.

After taking a few pictures, while fighting off about 1 million bugs, we released the fish.

I didn’t think much more about it at the time, but that evening, as I was going through my pictures, I realized that both fish appeared to have an identical mark on their side.

On closer examination there was no question that it was the same fish – and that wasn’t all – the fish had obviously had a snack at some point, because it put on an additional 3 pounds.

As you can see from the attached pictures, the mark is clearly identical.

Perhaps it did manage to get Gayle’s small fish after all, once they had both been released, which would explain the extra 3 pounds.

Some fish it seems just can’t catch a break.

Andrew Townsend