I was reading a report about the Pere Marquette where the flyshop owner was showing a series of pictures of a brown trout that he realized he had seen in other photos of clients with his guides. There were probably four pictures taken of this fish caught over I think a season or two. I haven’t fished any one stream often enough to become that familiar with a particular fish and I wonder what that would be like to know where one nice fish lives and try to catch it multiple times. I am not sure how I would feel about catching it again. I think I wouldn’t be as excited the next time. One nice thing is it proves catch and release works on a large brown and that a number of flyfishers got the thrill of a lifetime.
Glenn -
The summer of '06 I fished a neat wild trout fishery in the Central Mountains of Idaho several times.
There was one spot where the creek split and then came back together with a really hard current on my left side and a really soft current coming in on the right side. Where they merged the left branch was maybe 5-6’ across and the right branch was a bit smaller. The currents formed a relatively deep hole at the point where they merged. There was a lot of streamside foliage, so there was a partial canopy over the hole, and even with a 7’6" rod you couldn’t really cast, but could just flip the fly out on to the water.
Three out of four times I fished that spot, I put a big wullf pattern on to the soft water on the right side and left it drift to the seam. When it hit the seam, the currents pulled it down. After it had been sucked down about a foot, a good size rainbow came up from the bottom of the hole and took the fly.
There is no doubt that that was the same fish - the only 17" rainbow I had caught in that creek. There were some other fishies close to that size, but this was the biggest one I had caught there. Each time it was exactly the same take at exactly the same point, and after he took the fly, he ran downstream, I followed him to a point I could control him, and I landed and released him in almost exactly the same spot.
So it was deja vu all over again. And it was just as much fun the third time as the first time. Getting to that spot on the creek to fish it that way again filled a delightful anticipation, and getting that big old trout to take the same fly the same way three out of four times was just dandy.
John
Glenn -
The comment at the end of your post about different fly fishers catching the same fish reminded me of a really special experience in the fall of '08.
To make a long story short, on 9-9-08 I fished Big Elk Creek in SE Idaho. First fish of the day was a 20" cutthroat. Follow the link ( post #43 ) for more about that outing and some pics of the the fishy and where I caught him.
http://www.flyanglersonline.com/bb/showthread.php?t=22443&page=5
Ten days later, I happened to meet Simon Gawesworth, whom I had met several times before, and a mate of his, Peter Morris of Blue Hills Australia, while we hiking in, separately, to fish Big Elk. To make another long story short, Peter ended up catching the same big cutthroat that I had caught on 9-9-08. Follow the link for more about that experience and some more pics of the fish and his lie.
http://www.flyanglersonline.com/bb/showthread.php?t=23453
John
If you ever get a chance to fish teh tailwaters below Navajo Damm on the San Juan River in NW New Mexico, you’ll get to see and catch fish that are caught repeatedly.
Kind of like fishng for pets. Fun for a short while, but it pales quickly, at least for me.
Buddy
Not as glamorous as a nice Trout but 2 summers ago I caught the same Rock Bass 2 times and then my son caught him for the third time.
I am certain it was the same fish…unusually big for that river, it had the same notch out of the dorsal fin from an old injury and of course it was in the same spot.
I caught this guy twice. Both times it was out of the same hole. The first time it was in early September, the second it was in mid October. You can see how much his color changed the closer it got to spawning time.
My nearest trout stream is a tiny Driftless area spring creek. Back in the early 2000s before the series of huge recent storms nearly destroyed the fishery I used to fish it every couple of weeks around the year. It was always possible to catch a couple dozen fish ranging up to about 18?. There was one beautiful stretch that was pretty shallow but right up against the shore you could always pick up a trout on dries. There was one bush that hung over the stream that was just nasty to fish. You had to cast upstream under a limb and get in the slot to drift the dry under the bush. But if you could hit the slot, there were always a couple of browns under that bush that would rise to the fly. One day I got a fly in the drift and a huge rainbow came out from under the bush and slammed the fly. In that shallow run the rainbow cartwheeled three times before throwing the fly. Over the course of the summer I hooked that fish three times and never got it to the net. And then the fish was gone. Maybe a raccoon or eagle got it. The DNR allows people to kill fish over 15? and maybe someone couldn?t resist killing a big rainbow. I fish that bush the rest of the season. The little browns were back buy my fish was gone.
Yes, I have several fish I know I have caught multiple times in my life, and know some fish that not only did I catch, but others did as well. The biggest fish I caught at the Idaho fish-in this past season came to hand twice, from the same spot, on the same fly, a couple days apart. One big brown in Montana I caught four times in one season, and I have pics of at least two of those days. I have caught steelhead twice in the same day, and once on the San Juan in NM, my ex, my brother in law, and I caught one trout four times in a single day.
Photos really help with this, as fish like browns have unique spot patterns that can be used to identify them. Scars and such (like the bow on the Juan) assist as well.
when TUtv did a show on the PM last season I think, the guides had the trout named.
during the summertime, I have a huge bass that lives beneath my boat and boat dock. they get caught several times a day by fisherman in boats. theyre always proud of their catch. it makes me laugh. he’s a big boy, about 5 lbs. there are other fish like this in the marina.
A couple of years ago I was in a fly shop talking to a couple guys about fishing (go figure) and a guy walks in and a couple of guys say hello to him by name. Well this guy walks up to his buddy and holds out his hand to give to him something. His friend holds open his hand and the guy drops a fly into the palm of his hand. His friend looks up kind of puzzled and kind of smiling and says its one of mine, where did you get it? The guy answers from the lip of the biggest steelhead you almost caught.
His buddy was in the middle of telling us the story of the one that got away.
Now that I think about it I bet he paid that guy to do that.:lol:
Buddy, my fishing buddy, Buzz, and I fished the San Juan a few years ago and managed to catch the same 21-inch Bow from under the same rock overhang on two different days, using the same fly pattern. We didn’t realize it until we looked at the pictures later.
My son, Mike, managed to catch the same Cutthroat out of the same hole on the same day on Big Elk Creek in Idaho, once on the way upstream, and again on the way down.
We fish a spring creek that has a resident population of Browns and a few of our pics show that we have caught the same fish more than once over several years, and I’m sure that we have caught many more, but have not taken pics of all of them to compare.
Kelly.