A Little Fishing Story

[Vaughn McMillan]

LOML and I were at my sister's house tonight to celebrate her #3 son's 40th birthday. He and #2 son work for the same large construction company (#2 is a Project Manager and #3 is a Lead Safety Officer). While we were there, the birthday boy delivered #2's "trophy" from the company's annual fishing trip last year on the San Juan River below Navajo Dam in the NW corner of New Mexico. The trophy was a custom-made 9' carbon fiber fly fishing rod made by one of the guys at their company. This thing weighed less than any fishing rod I've ever felt, including ultralight rods. They had prizes for the biggest fish, and the biggest brown trout. He won both prizes with one fish. I'm not sure which prize the trophy represented but the fly rod was impressive.

This section of the San Juan River is a world-renowned trout fishery with specific Special Trout Water regulations. You can use only artificial flies or lures with single barbless hooks. The entire 3.75-mile stretch downstream from the dam to the Crusher Hole Day Use Area is catch-and-release only. This fish came out of the Crusher Hole. He caught it with a 2 1/2 pound leader on his fly line. It took him 47 minutes to land it.

Here's a pic of the winning fish. The guy holding the fish is the guide; my nephew is the guy on the left. They only kept it out of the water long enough to snap the photo. I think he said it was 31 inches long. I don't think they had a chance to weigh it. They were fishing from a boat, and he said they circled the hole 6 or 7 times as he was fighting it. Once he had it on the line, all the other fishermen (mostly other guys from his company) moved out to give them room. The guide asked him if he wanted to hold it for the photo, but my nephew declined, figuring the guide knew how to handle it more safely than he did. (He told me that the guides who work this section of the river are very careful with the fish there. If a fish dies under their watch they consider it a career-crushing blow. They kept it in the net and in the water for 20 minutes or so to let the fish rest before taking it out of the water on the shore. My nephew rightly called it a once-in-a-lifetime catch.

 

[Mike Stafford]

Definitely a nice fish. Used to do a little fly fishing for trout back in the day. Never caught anything that approached this size. I doubt there are any trout in N.C. streams and rivers close to that size. We have gray trout and speckled trout in salt water that big or even much bigger. I caught two 14 pound citation gray trout in one night fishing in the Chesapeake Bay. Big trout are not nearly as good to me as the smaller ones and I really like the 1-2 pound speckled trout we used to catch.

Spent more time using a fly rod with popping bugs for bream, crappie and other sunfish. That was fun. We used to have an annual trip to Currituck Sound and float fish with inner tubes and waders around the duck blinds. Caught nice stringers of crappie that way.

Never forget the trip where I was in water just deep enough to stand on the bottom wearing my waders and inner tube and happened to see something in the corner of my eye. Looked down and there was a gar about 5 feet long next to my leg just stationary. He remained there for a while and just moved off nice and easy. I am sure he was not going to bite me but it was a bit unsettling to have such a toothy fish next to your leg.