My biggest brown trout

Changed it up a bit and headed South of the border to the Adirondack mountain of New York sate for some trout fishing. Besides the breathtaking scenery and crystal clear rivers and streams, New York state stocks many thousand of brown trout and rainbow trout into the river systems every spring.

The trout stocked by New York state early in the spring are typically under 9 inches long. With a minimum slot size of 12 inches required to keep trout, they have a chance to grow nicely, and possibly be caught and released a few times as well.

Every now and then, a trout will survive for a few seasons, and grow to decent size. These "holdover" trout are somewhat rare, but a few nice ones are caught every season. While catching any eating size trout is always fun, these trout are considered trophy size. Furthermore, their flesh texture and taste are a lot better once they have been on a wild fed diet for a few years.

After hitting some spots without any success, we finally hit more familiar water shortly after 3:00 PM. Jimmy immediately connected with a small brook trout, very rare in those waterways, and most likely a natural non hatchery fish. I slipped into my new neoprene waders, and was very glad to have picked them, as the water is still just above freezing temperature, with snow melt off still pouring into the rivers.

Tied on a floating jointed Rapala (j5) in brown trout pattern, and started casting into a deep pool. Within a couple minutes, a large trout crushed the lure, and as soon as I set, I new it was going to be a nice one. Once the brown trout jumped, I knew is was likely on of the biggest ones I caught. As I slowly waded back to shore while fight the fish, I was hoping it was well hooked, as it put up a wild head shaking battle despite the near freezing cold water temperature. Once I landed it, I knew I had just beat my personal best record for brown trout, which ended up measuring 17.5 inches, and weighing 2.25 lbs.

After a while with not much else biting there, we switched spots. The next spot was quite productive, Jimmy and I landed a good 20 trout. Mostly brown trout and 1 rainbow, they were all hatchery sized, and must have been stocked very recently.

When fishing died down at that spot, we hit our last spot for the day, which ended up the most productive by far. We landed another 30 trout or so, again, almost all were brown trout, with a couple rainbows, and even a fallfish. Most were small, expect for one more brown trout over the 12 inch slot size for Jimmy. Most were caught using small spinner, though Jimmy caught a fair share using a fly rod, and I caught some more on the Rapala J5. We called it a day shortly before 7:00 PM, just in time to do some cross border grocery shopping before heading back home.

Hope to head back there again later on this spring.