Pictures of Fishermen (and Women), Page 9

This fat-bodied 22" male was my largest brown trout ever at the time. It took a deep nymph and took me 150 yards downstream in a 20-minute fight in strong current.

Here I'm netting a nice rainbow in the rapids.

Lena's Kenai River rainbow

A 17-inch rainbow I caught Thursday evening

I spent at least an hour standing on this rock trying to launch ~75-foot casts of a big streamer and split shot (with a narrow windoer for the backcast) into a piece of deep, calm water across the river, where at least two rainbows kept chasing my fly but missing as the whitewater in between grabbed my line and ripped it away from them. A great trial-by-fire for my new 5-weight rod. When I finally got the hang of the casting and presentation, I caught one around 13 inches and eventually hooked the one I was after, a beast in the 21-23" range or so. But it took off downstream on me faster than I could follow and got the angle it needed to spit the hook.

Another entry into my "dad dropping a fish" series. Here he's dropping his first arctic grayling back in the drink. It was still on the hook, so we got a better picture shortly.

Here's my first arctic grayling, about 8 inches long. I was just thrilled to have caught my first grayling; I had no idea I would go on to catch 25 more (mostly larger), and that the next day would make this one look slow!

My dad walks back to the car after a few hours catching grayling.

My dad's first arctic grayling.