Best Personal Fight

[creek wader]

Here you go...

Late night fishing at Taneycomo... This was the first night (after the flood last year) they shut the water down..

with a 7wt fly rod.. and 8lb maxima leader....

It was caught (snagged) just a couple inches outside of the mouth on the cheek..

Troutn was with me this night

Not sure what it would go.. but several people says in the 60lb range

Nice haul, Leonard. That's what I'm talking about. A spoonbill on a flyrod or ultra light, like gunner. A 18 lb. carp vs. boy. Snappers, yea, what a hoot. I think many of us had that experience. It's like hooking into a German Shepherd. But, let's talk about fish. I'm just killing time, till this crazy weather breaks again. The wind chill is in the teens here, at St. Joe. Any others out there?

[Danimal]

22" stream smallmouth on 6# test. From the time I hooked her until the time I landed her there was another one at least as big trying to take the lure from her mouth. Dan-o

[Sumday]

In 92 had Joe at Forsyth Bait build me a rod threw a Bomber Long A in rainbow pattern bout 10'" long got stripped what a memory !!

[Bman]

Here you go...

Late night fishing at Taneycomo... This was the first night (after the flood last year) they shut the water down..

with a 7wt fly rod.. and 8lb maxima leader....

It was caught (snagged) just a couple inches outside of the mouth on the cheek..

Troutn was with me this night

Not sure what it would go.. but several people says in the 60lb range

WOW!!!

[ozarkgunner]

WOW!!!

It seems the only time you can land the spooners on light tackle is when you snag them right under the bill by the mouth. Every other time they spool you.

NICE CATCH!!!! The boys down below Zink dam catch the spoonbill on fly rods a lot.

[old larry]

The fish that I remember best is this one.

This is a 17"+ (3+#) rainbow trout that fell for a little golden jig (1/80). I caught this girl at Lake Shawnee in Topeka, KS on March 7th. It was windier than heck that day, blowing 15-35, with whitecaps crashing into my waist while wading at the dam. I was fishing a 6'9" 2/3wt Mark Fitch Purist bamboo stick with a Dennison Fly-Lite reel. The reel doesn't have a drag to speak of, and when the fish took off, the handle was smacking me in the fingers over and over and over. I fought her for about 5 minutes before she came to net. It is, to this day, the largest trout I have caught.

I actually like the one that got away stories. I have a lot of those! But the fish this young man caught is about the size and width of the fish that I got into on the North fork of the White a few tears back. Most of us have landed "a nice one" but this fish was a surprise to me in that it wasn't a lot bigger. It was in a deep hole and took a double top secret wooly bugger of mine. I would have swore I had hooked an extremely large fish but after a lengthy battle I could see this fish was not going to set any records. The rainbows in the N Fork of the W. have been stream born for oddles of generations and a fish this size put up a fight I will never forget in my little stream fishing life.