The One that Got Away… At Last!

You know how fishermen always have a story about “the one that got away?” Well up until Yesterday I didn’t. You see, I haven’t caught huge fish but I have caught decent size fish. I had one such encounter while carp fishing but it was a carp so it didn’t count (in my opinion).  I haven’t however caught a fish that put up a huge fight and that I ultimately lost. That is until Yesterday. 

So I fished Collins Lake this tuesday. I had the day off so I figured I would make the hour and twenty minute drive and try my hand at catching some planter rainbows. Word on the street (okay, not the street, just my buddy Russell) was that folks were KILLING the trout out there. He told me you could see hundreds of trout swimming past one specific area. So we made a trip of it and headed out to Collins. When we got there we saw people pulling out trout and imagined an epic day. And it was pretty epic, just not in the way that I had imagined. 

We got out on the water at about 10:30. My set up was a basic slip sinker rig with a ½ oz egg weight, a 2 foot fluorocarbon leader, a size 16 treble hook and some rainbow power bait. Russell Got his rod in the water using power eggs. Within a few minutes he had a fish on! I missed my chance at first fish but it was okay because in my mind we were just getting started. A few minutes later he got into another fish. A bit later another guy came, stood next to me and started fishing and he started getting into fish as well! Picture it: Ten feet to my left there is a guy catching fish, ten feet to my right is another guy catching fish and I am getting skunked!

I was so frustrated that I had to take a break. We had some lunch and a couple beers which helped me get into a better mood. I was ready to fish again and I was also ready to catch; only it didn’t happen. I switched bait, leader length, tactics and I continued being fishless as Russell caught more fish. I finally asked Russell what his set up was and it was a ridiculous sounding set up. The guy didn’t even have a leader; he just sort of rigged up his own monofilament line as the leader and didn’t have an egg weight, but simply used a small tear drop weight held in place by the barrel swivel. Well, I figured I tried my way, why not try his way even though mine seemed better, what with the fluorocarbon leader and egg weight. So I tied up his poor man’s rig and wouldn’t you know it, at 3:05 pm, five minutes after tying this set up, I got my first bite! I missed that one, put on another power egg and tossed it back in and again, I got a bite! I was beside myself! For whatever reason when I used a fluorocarbon leader the fish wanted nothing to do with it and when I used the mono they couldn’t resist! And this sure proved true at about 3:25 when I caught my first trout! 

I got a few more bites and probably could have caught more planters on a regular rod but at around 3:45 I decided I wanted to head down to dry creek and try for some wild trout at dry creek down below the dam. This is where things changed. I tied on a size?? (Mark?)  paralyzer that Mark at Northern California Trout gave me the last time we fished together. On my first dead drift on a riffle, boom! Just a strike but I didn’t land him. Then after about my 10^th cast and a few fruitless strikes, the bite died. So I switched to a black wooley bugger and then a Royal humpy I decided to go back to the paralyzer. I cast twice and on my third cast, I caught a nice little baby trout!

 I had very little time to fish since the sun was going down but I continued to cast and wouldn’t you know it, the bite picked up! A bit later I had another little trout and another and another totaling four small wild rainbows in a matter of about 20 minutes. That would include time to catch the trout, land him, net him, take a picture and toss him back in. Did I mention that I caught each trout, used a net to get them in, didn’t let them touch the ground, wet my hand to handle them and released them all safe and sound?  Yes, I have to pat myself on the back for that ;)

The sun set at around 4:50 but it started getting dark at around 5:20. It was getting harder to see my fly but I continued throwing it. At this point I noticed more trout seemed to be snacking at the riffle. Bites were plenty and I noticed the fish were getting bigger as it got darker.

This is when it happened. At first I thought it was a snag because my line just stayed completely stiff. I pulled line in with my hand and all of a sudden I felt it move! I reeled in and at this point I felt it struggle. When I reached down for my net I felt him take one last forceful charge and SNAP! He broke my 5x 5 lb tippet and swam away with my paralyzer. Now partially it was my fault that this happened, since I was only catching smaller trout, I didn’t think to loosen my drag and it was on all the way tight. 

After it happened I was crushed but at the same time I smiled. I was there to fish and what a way to end the day but by losing what must have been at least a 6 or 7 lb trout! Then I had a second thought, when is the next time I will be out here again, especially since stream fishing is coming to a close? So I put my head lamp on, squinted to see as I tied on another paralyze and threw a few more casts before the bite died and it got to dark for me to see what was going on. 

Perhaps I should have been sad. Perhaps I should have dwelled on my lack of preparation on setting the drag. Perhaps I could have cursed the fact that I didn’t get down there earlier or anything else but instead I dwelled on the positive. I now know that there are BIG fish in that creek, I know how and where to try to catch them and I now have a “one that got away” story to share until next season when I go back there and catch him and his bigger siblings!

Total count: 5 trout. That and an awesome “One that got away” story.