A Trout Tail
When an employee of the DNR is impressed with a trout, you take notice. I was at the Madison Fishing Expo and talking with the DNR folks there and one of the guys talked about the 29 inch female brown shocked the last fall in Crawford County. He even had a photo on his phone. The DNR guy told me the landowner didn’t even fish and he bet the monster was still in there. Needless to say I was impressed and recognized the background terrain. The next day I was knocking on the owner’s door asking for permission for the March opener.
The landowner had gone with the DNR when they shocked. He went out the next day, bought a license and trout stamp and caught the brown. There were only 2 days left of season. He used a nightcrawler and 15 pound test at daybreak. He said: “I don’t know what all the fuss is about trout…took me 5 minutes to catch it.” He did admit that the monstrous brown broke his rod as he landed it. He had just gotten it back from the taxidermist and he invited me to come and see the mount on the wall. It was a monster.
He bragged that he had owned the land for decades and never fished it because of lack of time. He only went with the shocking crew because he was thinking about selling the land and wanted to see what lived in his water.
This is the hole the 29 incher had lived in. The owner told me when the DNR shocked the hole there were a few smalls shocked first and then the hog came floating up from right below the current. It was hugging the bottom in the dark muck.
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