The Northern California Fly Fishing Board

I was lucky enough to pull in a 19inch brown trout while fishing a section of the Stany a month back. I had on a 6X tappered leader line, with no tipit, so i was able to put a lot of pressure on the line to get the fish in. The fight was done in relatively calm water, and it still took me a good 5 minutes to bring it to hand (officially the largest fish and longest fight I've had in my few years fly fishing)

The fish was fine. He was big, strong and healthy, and a long fight like that took more out of me than the fish. Although I was very worried once I realized it was going to take a little while to get him in, that the fish may not survive, once i released him he drafted a rock close by for a little while, then shot off with no problem.

Does that mean he survived after I left the area? Who knows. But for a larger fish I didn't even worry for a second he wouldn't recover