Pictures of Trout, Salmon, and Grayling, Page 19

First fish on my new Sage -- native Yellowstone cutthroat

This school of young-of-the-year brook trout was basically trapped in a pool in a remarkable little brook trout stream stricken by drought. The adult trout population seems to have been wiped out by the drought and a previous flood, but the young trout are as thick as minnows.

The picture is taken from above water with a polarizing filter and a telephoto zoom lens. There is one other picture of them.

This is just one of several nearly identical browns I caught on this spring day.

This is my largest brook trout ever (as of June '06), 13 3/4". It was sporadically surface feeding at dusk and took a nice spinner pattern on the first pass.

This photo came out a bit strange, but it's a nice brook trout!

So far I've only really chased Westslope Cutthroat in small streams. Two fish around 11-12" from this stream were my biggest yet. The other one squirmed away from my gentle grip before I could get a photo.

Here's a beautiful little brook trout in the 9 inch range.

After the Hex hatch has been going for a few days, it doesn't take much to get some big fish working. This 18 inch brown revealed himself with one or two rises to sporadic bugs during a dud of a dun emergence.

Jedi Master Mishka, the mighty 6-week-old labrador retriever puppy, investigates my largest brook trout ever (as of June '06). He quickly approved of the fish and then tried to eat my sock.

Disclaimer: Before any C&R evangelists go for my throat, I'll point out that this is the only trout I've kept all year, and it inhaled my dry fly directly into its gills and ripped one of them out during the fight. It was mine or the herons'.