Hi, My name is Josh Stewart, I am a Pennsylvania native... Or wild, depending on how technical you like to get! I live for anything that will put me in the outdoors and connect me with nature. From exploring waterways chasing wild trout, to logging countless hours in the woods trying to keep a step ahead of whitetail deer. With sharing my experiences, stories, and photos I hope to get more people spending time outside living the wild life. Enough about me and onto the story, or should I say legend!
It was the Spring of 2014 when Ross, Jason, and Myself decided to take our fishing to the next level and start exploring new waters in search of a Brown Trout upwards of 20'". Weekdays at work couldn't have gone by any slower. We awaited our only chance to chase these monsters, the weekends. I remember many phone calls throughout the week talking about new strategies, what new water we'd explore, and where these elusive giants could be hiding. Finally, the weekend was here and we were headed for the stream, often times so early it'd feel like we hadn't even slept at all. With the three of us mostly being beginners to fly fishing a lot of the early days of Spring were spent trying new techniques and supposed magical flies we had read about online. Each bend in the stream being one we've never set eyes on, seemingly more promising of holding a giant than the last. Some days were down right frustrating. I would even carry my spinning rod with me as a crutch for if things got too tough. Other days were very rewarding and I remember Each of us grinning as we'd regularly pull solid rainbows into our nets.
 | ||||
Jason with a nice bow
By late Spring, we had explored most of a certain waterway that we felt to be promising for getting that trophy we had thought about every day. Each of us having at least an encounter with one and even hooking into trophy sized fish only to end in heartbreak. On a particular day I remember working over a productive run and up to an overhanging branch where I had caught some big rainbows earlier in the season and even my biggest brown trout to date, a fat 18" fish with a huge hooked jaw. A perfect cast underneath the branch resulted in heavy weight on the end of my line and a violent run towards some submerged timber. I somehow managed to battle the unseen beast back towards me, as he came to surface I caught a glimpse, there he was, the yellowest belly trophy sized brown trout I had seen yet. "Ross, big fish on!" I yelled as I watched him disappear around a bend having no chance of hearing me over the noise of the rapids between us. It was just me and the fish now, I had to somehow net him on my own. We tangled for a 5 minute eternity, each gaining ground on each other only to have it disappear. Finally, I had him worn enough to reach for my net, an angle of the rod tip and I had him right back under the very branch I hooked him under. As I lift him to the surface to put him in the basket, the weight I had felt on my rod for the past 5 minutes had suddenly disappeared and resulted in me watching my line wrap around the Sycamore branch what looked like at least 100 times. The fish that I had worked so hard for swam back into the depths without hesitation and with him went my hopes for landing a trophy class brown trout. The rest of the evening I sat on the bank just watching fish rise to a nice sulphur hatch. Never even tying another fly on the end of my line. I left feeling defeated.
|
The day was June 21st, the first day of Summer and we set out before dawn to explore the last stretch of water our studded boots had not touched on our new favorite stream. What a beautiful section it was, I remember stopping for a minute just to feel privileged to fish in such a beautiful, wild feeling place. The morning was filled with excellent fishing, as it was a cloudy overcast day. by lunch time we had all caught solid fish. As we looked ahead we saw a promising looking run and worked towards it. Before we had got there, a fast moving storm that would send most fisherman running back to their trucks, started dumping rain on us. We opted to wait it out under a canopy of trees. We sat there listening to thunder and watching lightning hit. After about 15 minutes without hearing a rumble we walked to the next run, a deep channel that looked like it could hold a big fish or two. Ross and Jason worked one section and I worked out of sight into another. Fish after fish fell to my presentations in a nice seam behind a large rock, most of them being solid sized brown trout. After wearing out my welcome, I worked back to where Ross and Jason fished. I arrived just in time to see Jason's rod bent in half and with a plus sized rainbow, channeling it's inner dolphin, it jumped over and over.
After snapping a few pictures of Jason's fish, I worked my way up through a deep run to the head of the hole. I saw some shallow water with a defined drop off into a deeper rocky run. A quick, accurate cast along the bank and into the deep resulted in a tug like I had never felt before. I tugged back, little did I know that would result in a memory that will be etched in my brain forever. As the hook buried into his mouth upstream he went with an unstoppable force. Big fish on, Big fish on, I yelled out. Jason and Ross both looked and went back to fishing, knowing my excitement over typical 17-18" fish. 100 yards up stream, about to spool me, I had to take chase. By this time, they had realized I wasn't exaggerating and Jason ran up stream to see what I had hooked. Just by the look on his face I knew that I had to turn excitement into focus. He uttered something I couldn't hear. I knew that it would take all of my focus to land this fish on such light line. Up and down he went, head shake after head shake, burying his nose into the bottom trying to shake the hook, towards a log jam, only a fish this old could know every trick there was to throw a hook. Finally, there he was. I could see the glowing orange of his belly and massive hooked jaw. He would make hard runs and then rest in a deep channel. With the light line that I mistakenly used he was nearly immovable. Finally I had played him into a run that wasn't quite as deep, Jason made a move on him and tried to net him. He wasn't falling for it. He saw the net and jetted back into the deep channel. We needed a better plan. Jason went in over his waders into the run. I slowly guided him down stream and towards the net. This time he didn't see it, with him two feet above the net I took a risk and let slack in my line. It worked! The current drifted him down stream and he somehow fit into the net.
As he lifted the net out of the water I felt a great relief and turned focus back into excitement again. There he was. The beast we had hunted for months. We all just spent a moment staring at him in disbelief, he didn't even seem real. I lifted him out of the netting for a few pictures.
 |
| You can see why we named him Buffalo Head |
With a head more like a Buffalo than a Brown Trout he barely fit into my hands. As the photo shows, he was very unimpressed that he made a rare mistake in thinking my presentation was the real deal. So we lowered him back into the water and took a few quick measurements. One last picture and away he went, hopefully for another lucky fisherman to enjoy.
We had reached our goal by putting in hard work and persevering, we continue to do so to this day. We still enjoy time on the water and fish together almost every weekend, chasing after the next memory and fish of a lifetime. It was later that I had found out another fisherman had caught and released this fish for me to enjoy the previous year. So I'll end by saying, a simple release of a good fish can seed such an excellent memory for someone else to share and hopefully so on.
No comments:
Post a Comment