Catching Up with an Old Friend

I was fishing one of my very favorite spots. (While I will be reviewing and discussing various fishing spots in this blog, I’m not telling where this one is exactly. All I’ll say is it’s on the East Branch between East Branch and Downsville and I'm usually the only one there. Hence why I’m not tellin’.) Anyways, I was fishing the evening hatch on June 3, 2011. It’s a slow flat pool that’s really tough, but there’s almost always something rising. Big fish. Always, big fish. There were all kinds of bugs on the water. I was working a fish sipping mid-stream, trying the usual suspects; a blue wing olive emerger – no luck; a big brown drake– there were a few around – no luck; then the old standby, a rusty spinner – Now, that worked!

After a nice fight, I netted a big brown. I measured him against the marks on my rod, 19 ½ inches. The one other guy on the pool had waded over to take a look. My phone (read camera) was in the car. He offered to take a picture and send it to me. Nice guy.  A few days later, an email arrived with the photo of the fish.

Jump ahead to almost the same day a year later, June 6, 2012. I’m at the same spot, trying the same flies. This time a brown drake emerger worked. Again, I land a nice big brown, this time it’s almost 21 inches. I had remembered my phone so laid him on some soft grass and snapped a quick picture. When I got home I download it to my fishing pictures folder. While there, I scroll through some of the other pictures. I stop at the one from the year before, then jump back this latest pic. I go back and forth, it looks like the same fish. I then place them side by side. The spots all match up. Holy crap, I caught the same fish two years in a row. I haven’t caught him again but I’m hoping he’s still there.

This brings up the question of how old was that fish? Let’s work backwards. He was say 21 inches in 2012 and 19.5 in 2011, so he grew 1.5 inches in a year. We know that growth rate slows with age so let’s assume it drops by half each year. If you do the math, the fish is four years old at a minimum, maybe 5. Searching the web confirms my guess and I also found that only 3% of wild brook trout make it to 3 years old. So, he was a survivor.

And that’s why we put ‘em back.