Lilley's Lake Taneycomo fishing report, July 1

[Phil Lilley]

14 hours ago, rainbow said:

Great fish. Hope it was released and survived.

No it wasn't.  Not sure what happened.  O2 was good,  Temp was good.  May be it was the fight.  It did fight hard and it took a while to land it.  Big live well.  Was never out of the water for more than 10 seconds.  Waited till it was obvious it was dying to take the picture.  He even said he didn't need pics if it meant a good release.   I worked with it for an hour.  It just never did right herself in the live tank.  It may have survived if it had been release and not brought in but I'm not convinced.  There's just hardly no way to land a big trout like that, take any kind of picture and get it released successively.

What I'd do?  And I did this once when I was by myself fishing- before even landing it, I'd call someone at the dock and tell them to head up to where I was.  I'd land the fish and keep it in the net.  Troll to the bank.  Get out of the boat in to the water with the fish.  Measure it if I have a tape.  Lift it out of the water for a quick pic.  Release the fish.  We do this all the time in Alaska.  The fish is out of the water for 10 seconds tops.  Handling is held to a minimum.

[rainbow]

I know you did everything you could to save it. Was a beautiful fish though.

[DADAKOTA]

that is a good one.  Too bad it did not survive.  Should make some great smoked trout though.