Sunday, May 8, 2011

Brookies for breakfast, and the biggest smallmouth I've EVER seen




WHO says fly fisherman are snobs?


I went DOWN AND Dirty with leeches, minnows and night crawlers this past Saturday for the opening of our inland fishing season, and loved EVERY minute of it! I went out with my buddy Steve in his 20 foot walleye boat on X flowage to try and find some keeper walleyes for the frying pan, but that magical 15 inch size limit eluded us on Saturday.
We caught plenty of walleyes, as even a 14 and 3/4 incher ( insert quality dnr fisheries joke here) and had MANY laughs until Steve hooked this absolute behemoth of a smallmouth. It was just shy of 23 inches, and 7 and a half pounds on the scale, when it finally surfaced after a battle of wills, I couldn't believe my eyes, I simply had NEVER seen anything this size.  As the smallmouth season is still closed, we quickly snapped this picture and put her back in the water, but an amazing memory of an amazing fish.
We had a little lunch on the water and decided to try and hit a small stream he knew to see if we could find some Brookies.
it had been a long time since I searched any stream for trout sans fly, so I had to get back to basics and remember how to "Huck Finn" it. We made VERY short order of harvesting a a few trout,(below our allotted limit) the largest of these little gems measuring just under a foot. They taste fantastic with eggs! I don't plan on making a habit of it, but it was nice to eat some trout for once.

WHO says fly fisherman are snobs?
Surely not my stomach

4 comments:

  1. I would think that the smallmouth is bigger, but I know it is relative with someone as small as Steve holding it.

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  2. awesome, sarcasim at its finest

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  3. Did you eat the bass and bonefish also?

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  4. Smallmouth bass " soup" is slowly becoming one of my favorites! I'll give you the recipe if you want!
    As far as bonefish, I like a Kahlik glaze on them, but MAN are they tough to clean! Especially when you keep like ten of them!

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