We received this fish moment from our friend in New Zealand who guides fly fishing on the S Island. A couple of times through his season he mentioned this large trout on our favorite reach of a back country river that kept eluding his guests. The season wore on and the fish was seen and missed a few times. Finally, in our emails, he piped up, proclaiming Easter was his time, as he and his wife were going to get him.
Sure enough, later that week we received an email of the moment. Imagine sighting this beauty in crystal clear waters, holding along the edge of a run. 11 pound New Zealand brown.
10 comments:
Hey Dave that looks an awful lot like a chinook and not a brown....what gives??
KM
No kidding! The dimensions are unreal. Apparently the fight was insane. It's a brown trout, alright. A big, male, old, huge headed beast of a thing. Nothing like taking a trout like that on a bead headed nymph in a shallow run. Just a trout that wanted to grow itself up to look like a salmon, apparently.
:)
Dave,
That is pretty convincing that it is a chinook. Black gums, absolutely no spots on the gill plates, all of the spots are along the top portion of the fish....My co-worker who fishes for chinooks every year is convinced that it is a chinook...that genuine NZ brown is a genuine NZ chinook.
It is not a brown.
Last word comes from NZ
"Hi Dave,
...By the way cheers for the Blogg.
I also checked in details the situation with my by boy caught at ____.
It is a Trout and not a salmon.
1) Too late into the season to be having them.
2) Never heard about salmon on the river.
3) Fins are trout fins
4) tail is trout tail
5) and this is the most important aspect of the situation
if we accept the fact that salmon could be there
if we accept that salmon could be late
if we make exception to all the above
a salmon would be in very bad condition, very white at the tail...
He is just that kind of ugly, big bastard spending or who spent most of his life in the gorge below ____ and came up recently with the influx of water from the last rain to shag the girls.
Amazing how many couples I have seen chassing each other...
Promising.
So again enjoy your time on the water.
Talk soon."
dave, your incorrect. Period. I've seen sockeye in rivers at prime condition months after they should all be dead. I'm sorry but that is NOT a brown. A very late run that entered the system would not be beat up. Google Chilean chinook salmon, which are the same strains and you get an instant match. Brown trout do not get black gums period, no matter how old they get, they also don't lose their gill plate spots or suddenly have their body spots shrink to dissapear.
http://www.simmsfishing.com/simms/images/items/David_Dobbs_main.jpg
You're definitely right abut the (Chilean) Chinook thing and I certainly was curious about the fish, like you. I wouldn't ever argue timing of a fish run - no certainties there. The lack of spots isn't really an argument because anything can happen there - spotless cuts, browns that look like Atlantic salmon, etc all occur. Black gums - your eyes are better than mine to pick that out vs reflection or shading. Body shapes - anything can happen with sea run influence. The fish being fresh, feeding, and resident in the river for quite some time and (now) in with paired up spawning browns is curious, however. So, while I can see it being a chinook, as I tiptoed around in the first reply, I can easily see it being one mother of a heavy sea run brown as well, especially having seen photos of some of the monster sea runners along the W Coast of the S Isl while there. I can also see it being a chinook. I won't get into an argument too deep about it though as I wasn't there and am open minded to the situation. I don't recall hearing too many stories about chinooks where they take up a run of a river for several weeks/month feeding and not turning color. This one certainly is holding color. It's just odd. My honest first reaction was the same as yours but it just doesn't all add up, either way. Note that I'm not afraid to say I'd be wrong calling it a brown, but I'm not saying i'm right calling it a chinook.
I wanted to follow up this morning. Like you, I'm 100% sure of the fish' id. In my posts, I wanted to point out, however, that there exists the possibility of an alternative. The reason I typed that was because there are two sides of this situation that I wish an annonymous poster would appreciate and read between the lines and pick up. Why? Because this tale was about the moment and the excitement, not the specifics. Is accuracy important? Yes, absolutely. However, this blog is about sharing of the enjoyment, appreciating and expressing excitement. For that, it doesn't matter if it's a brown, a chinook, a monkfish. On one side of these posts has been an annonymous poster as determined as a dog with a bone to call someone out for being wrong, missing the point of sharing this to begin with. On the other there is a known person to me who is excited about his moment with a big fish in a special situation. My personal compassion compels me to be happy and excited and share his enthusiasm, regardless of what was caught. Why? Because we love fly fishing. We love tales and moments. We do not love brow beating and calling people out and being insensitive. Ultimately, and this is the first time I've admitted this publicly, that's really why the Fly Fish Alberta Forum went away, as I set it up to fail under the 'guise of something else. We'd had enough of the negativities that miss the point for 10 years and needed an end to it, as my desire for a focus on happiness, joy, sharing, and positive outlook for fly fishing all needed a break from this kind of focus that misses the point - enjoy fly fishing. The reason accuracy matters little in this case was that the fish was released and it was a fun moment. Enjoy it for what it was, a large fish sight fished in crystal clear water that had been missed a couple times and a return engagement landed it.
Hey D&A, sorry to start a shit slinging contest on your blog. For the record I am not the above anonymous poster. You know I have never tried to hide behind the internet. I don't know what the guy in NZ is smoking (seriously) but that fish has never been a brown trout. But hey if it is a brown, it should be in the same spot on your next trip out there. So give it a poke in the lips for me and cut off it's adipose to send to a lab....
Junk aside, doing a great job on the blog. Stick some browns for me, I'm not coming east this year.
KM
That is a sea-run brown. Great thread! Jason P.
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