06/12/2017
At around 5:30 pm on Friday, an hour after arriving on the in , I hooked into something while nymphing that felt like a log. But when it quickly rose to the surface, it dawned on me that this was the fish of a lifetime!
As I looked on in awe at this buttery yellow dinosaur of a brown trout, I realized that I had seen this fish before----in photos on Lopstick Lodge's social media sites. And now it was on the end of my line. The line with the crummy heat sealed braided loop and sloppily tied leader with lackluster double surgeon knots. In a split second, I did what any middling flyfisherman would do: I put the screws to this near two-foot behemoth. And it took off running!
I had the drag of my rode-hard LLBean Streamlight 3 reel maxed out when it took, but the brown peeled off line like it was its job. Within seconds, it had me into my backing. When it paused, I applied some side pressure and tried to gain ground. The dance was on. Whenever I was able to gather my line on the reel and coax the beast into the shallows, it would calmly reorient its head downstream and fire like a shot when I reached for the net. Amid the burning in my forearm, this tug of war would go seven rounds, each ending in the same fashion: straight shot toward Long Island Sound.
As I reeled up the aforementioned braided leader inside my rod guide about the sixth time, I decided to make a move for the GoPro nestled in my waist pack. Figured that if I couldn't land this monster, at least I'd have a pic on camera. Bad move. If there's one thing I've realized since I got it as a wedding gift, the GoPro is bad juju before landing a fish. Wear it on your head while casting and you'll get no bites. I closed up the pack and resumed the battle.
It felt as if the fish was tiring as I watched it sprint for that seventh time. It only went out only about 30 feet before launching into a round of head shakes. As I leaned into the side pressure, I felt a pop and watched my Thingamabobber come flying back at me. The fight had concluded. Man had lost again.
As I dropped to my knees and listened as my "Nooooooooo!" filled the North Country air, I quickly realized that I was not as distraught as I thought I would be. I'm the type of guy who pouts upon losing a 13 inch stockie on the fly and chances are I will never hook into a trout this big in New England again. But this fight was something special. I had never had a trout pull drag on me in NH before and I land most of my trout inside of three minutes, let alone the 20-plus minute slobberknocker I just endured. This brown fought longer and harder than any other fish I've hooked into on the fly: the six cohos in Alaska included. Truly memorable.
As time passes and I see more and more grip and grins with Mr. Brown posted online, I won't lament the one that got away. Each year, I'll tip my cap and hope to dredge him up again. Hopefully he'll still be there!
~Jay
[I wrote this on my phone while riding a disabled commuter train home from work. Please excuse and misspellings or poor word usage]
