Fishing Tales Webpage

[spectr17]

I started a webpage to put your fishing tales and pics on. It's at

http://www.jesseshuntingpage.com/fishing-tales.html

If you would like to write a story on your fishing trip and even have some pics please let me know and I'll add it to the webpage. I can clean up any pics with my Adobe if some of your fish pics didn't come out good. I can lighten or darken the pic and a few other adjustments to make the pic look the best. Pics can be of the fish and your boat or even the countryside.

Break out those pens now, or keys and let's hear some of your fishing tales.

 

[SDHNTR]

This is one I'll always remember. Jesse, feel free to ue it.

My younger brother Taylor and I were fishing the East Walker river near Bridgeport one summer several years ago. Taylor was about 10, maybe 12, years old. Our family has a cabin near Bridgeport so we both fished the river frequently. At his young age my brother had already learned the sport and had several 4lb. plus trout to his credit. He is now the single best fisherman I know. I was standing in the river flyfishing near one of our favorite holes just below the dam of Bridgeport Lake. Taylor was standing on a rock near me tossing a lure. Fishing was pretty slow this afternoon and it became obvious Taylor was beginning to get bored. I watched him searching through his tackle box for a new lure to tie on. A few minutes later I turn around and he is about to cast the most god-awful looking lure you have ever seen. It was a large 6" chartruse colored Rapala that had been lurking in the bottom of that tackle box for who knows how many years. I must have picked it up in some bargain bin in a tackle shop at one time. I thought to myself no self-respecting trout would ever even look twice at such a thing. I hollered over at Taylor to "take that ridiculous thing off and tie on a lure that looks like something a fish might actually eat." He laughed back at me as he flipped the offending lure out into the river. With a precision cast that would make Bill Dance jealous, that lure sailed over the riffles and landed a couple feet back into a nice pool that was protected by overhanging willows. The lure floated there for a second as Taylor began to take up the slack. It looked so silly, a bright green and ugly lure floating in a pool in one of the West's greatest trout streams. I chuckled for a second. Taylor got about two or three cranks on the reel when out of the willows came a huge submarine-like shadow. I thought to myself "oh sh$#." Sure enough this massive trout whacked that lure and took off straight upstream. Taylor let out a whoop that I'll remember forever. The fished came to the surface and tried to jump but it was so fat that it could hardly get out of the water. It looked like a salmon it was so big. Immediately after the jump it turned its head and screamed off downstream with the current. I got to the bank and set my flyrod down. I yelled at Taylor to jump in the river and follow the fish. He did and followed it downstream for about 25 yards. Then we realized he had gone as far as he could as the depth of the water was up to his neck. He had to hold his rod up above his head to fight the fish. All you could see was his head and his arms holding the rod. It looked exactly like that scene from "A River Runs Through It." The fish was still heading downstream into Nevada. I grabbed Taylor by the back of his Levis and lifted him up and we took off downriver chasing that fish. I got to water so deep that was just about to go over the top of my chest waders. It was all I could do to hold him up so he could fight the fish. Finally after 15-20 minutes of this we got to a gravel bar that was only a foot deep or so. By this time we were at least 500 yards downriver from where the fish was hooked. The fish finally tired and we got a net under it. It was the biggest rainbow I have ever seen caught in person. Taylor took the net and the fish over to the bank. I was fumbling through my flyvest looking for my disposible camera when I heard a "thunk, whack, whack, whack." Taylor had that fish in a Vulcan headlock with one hand and was beating the crap out of the fish's head with a rock in his other hand. Needles to say this fish ended up on the dinner table and fed my family and two neighbor families that night. Back at Ken's the fished weighed in at just over 7 pounds. A true trophy, and for a young kid (well, really two young kids myself included) a fish to remember forever. As I got the camera out I realized that it had submerged during the fight and was worthless. Oh well. The memories last forever.