Dale's (pantherdreams) post The Big Fish reminded me of a fish story I heard this past weekend.

I had a fisherman staying at my rental cabin and we were up on the bridge watching the fish in the river, talking about various river things.



Here is the story he told:

The Poudre River (north of here, where those big forest fires were this summer) has a lot of big brown trout.



They're really big, but they are territorial, so they are no other fish around them, just these great big fish every 10 feet or so.



I was following one up the river, intent on putting my fly where he'd see it, and all of a sudden I came to a steeper part of the river with a waterfall in front of me.

I couldn't go forward into the fall, I couldn't go left because the current was too strong and rocky. To my right was a big pool, and I couldn't go around and turn back because the current would push me down from behind. I was stuck, hanging onto a rock for dear life.

My arm was getting tired and I had to do something, so I threw my rod into some willows along the right bank, got my wooden creel off and threw it, and it started floating downstream because I missed the bank.

I buttoned all my pockets and fastened things down as best I could, dove into the pool and swam for shore, fighting the current the whole way. And I lost my fish net."

I didn't ask him if he was able to retrieve his creel that went floating down when he missed the bank because when he said he lost his net, the inconsistency grated, and I decided the tale was a little bit exaggerated. Also, those nets are attached with a tether, so seemed like it should have stuck with him. But it was an interesting story all the same.



Here is a successful Brown catch here on The Big Thompson River.