Monster Day

[LOAH]

So, 100SP (newer member, friend) and I took a long drive to check in on one of my little honey holes (not much of a secret anymore, but I still won't kiss and tell ).

The tiger trout do well here and have provided some real stress for my rods. We were hoping the ice was gone, but had no real way to find out unless we actually checked it out for ourselves. Quite the risk to make such a long drive and not know the conditions, but we were confident that we could find something to do up there, if it was still iced.

Well, we cut it pretty close. Most of the lake was covered with ice, but my sweet spot was open and we made it worth our while.

Overall, the fishing was slow with zero action on hardware and spotty action on bait.

After all was said and done, I had caught a 20 inch tiger trout that looked like he was 17 (had to recheck a couple of times) on a minnow and a 23.5 inch tiger on a nightcrawler. The 23.5 matched my personal best trout, I think. The other 23.5 was from last year at the same place, same species, same sweet spot.

100SP had the first fish of the day at about 14 inches from a minnow and then had a long dry spell.

...That is until he hauled in an absolute monster at 26.5 inches!!!

Gigantor fought like a champ and kept running every time 100SP got him close enough to touch. I've got video, but it shows too much background.

After we were satisfied with that water, we decided to check on another place that was relatively close (close when you're in the middle of NOTHING). We got skunked there, but a pair of fish cops appeared magically to check our tags and were pretty excited when they heard of our successes from earlier. They took the hike with us back to my car (snow kept us from getting too close) to view the subject of our fish stories and were quite surprised when our claims were validated.

Measured another time right in front of them just for fun. So after they collected their jaws from the ground, they offered to take our picture and post it on the DWR website, but we respectfully declined. No need to disclose the location to the rest of the Earth. Besides, we got all the glory we needed just from holding those bad boys.

They bid us farewell (nice guys) and we fished the small outlet stream from the skunky lake, picking up a few small browns in the meantime. I should add that 100SP managed to make the biggest lunker of the day here when he put one of the hooks on his pointer deep into his thumb. OUCH!

It was a great day full of hiking, fishing, some catching, and subsequent big smiles lasting for the rest of the day.

100SP was grateful that we made it home safely, since I could barely keep my eyes open on the long drive home.

Awesome day. Glad I could have some good company and get him onto his first tigers.

Happy Fishing, Humans. Here are the pics:

[Sombeech]

OUCH!! Nice fish though.

[waltny]

Just noticed the UTF hoodie, looks sharp...
Good job on those tigers wherever you caught them.

[Jaxx]

That fish is HUGE!! Nice job. How did he get the hook out? did he cut the skin or pull the hook back out?

[LOAH]

He had to push it through past the barb and clip it with the needlenose, then he pulled the shank out. No biggie.

"Tis but a flesh wound."

[accadacca]

Ohhh boy you fellers know how to slay em.