A second fish of a lifetime; in one season

A mere three weeks after catching an extraordinary wild brown trout, I have succeeded in catching another, bigger one. Unlike last time I hadn't left my scales in the car, this one has a figure to it's weight rather than an estimate.

Unbelievably I caught this fish in exactly the same place as the last one, but just to shake things up it was fooled by a different fly. A size 14 JP pupa with a cream body and standard copper bead, proved the winning combination for this fish.

On this occasion I found there to be a lot more lesser fish present, this provided even more of a challenge than usual; although a little extra patience, along with a slightly tinged river from overnight rain helped.

I am beginning to think it may be time to invest in a newer, larger net, my Leeda scoop net proving invaluable normally, but significantly under-sized for these trophy fish.

With a little anguish, this fish shouldn't have been alone, in fact it wasn't, I caught three trout, but I did hook and lose another very large trout. I have been pursuing this particular trout for sometime, I first saw it last year, it hasn't moved and despite my best efforts it hadn't been caught either. Needless to say you can imagine how inconsolable I was, having succeeded in deceiving the fish, only to lose it during the fight and this was before I caught the other fish. It did however take the shine of the second capture a little and I cannot help but think how I could have landed two exceptional fish in one day. Maybe next time.

Unfortunately I had no audience this time and had to collar some chap to take some pictures for me. A finger across the lens affected all the pictures he took for me, I can't grumble, at least there are some pictures.

And the weight of the trout?
5lb 6oz, 24" in length.