Trout Live In Weird Places

[Driftless]

About a week ago I was contacted by one of my trout friends from the internet. He had lost an enormous female brown trout. He was really bummed because he was of the opinion he had lost the trout forever.

I asked him what he had hooked up with the first time. He was using some plain old little garden worms he had found under a couple rocks with a size 10 hook. This seemed awful small for such a big trout he described. He guess the extremely fat female brown trout to be between 25 and 27 inches.

The monster brown had broken off his 6 pound test line just before my buddy could net her. He told me he saw the hook on the corner of the monster's mouth and there was no damage or obstruction from the big trout having a hook deposited in its jaw. He and I decided a first light assault on the leviathan was in order.

Thursday morning at first light we hit her home. I watched as he covered the hole. The depth was pretty shallow and maybe 3 deep at the deepest and the water is gin clear. There was not a trout to be seen in the hole.

The area is only 10 feet from a busy highway. It is a rock face hole. After he fished the holding area, I threw a couple panther martins in to see if anyone was home that I had not seen. There still were no takers.

PICTURE OF HOLE HERE

Photo of hole here only after one of us catch it. I don't want to give away her hiding place.

The hole did not look big enough to support such a big trout. I began to become skeptical if this was even actually where the big girl lived. I inspected upstream and the water went down to about 2 inches deep at an obvious neck in the waterway. I asked my friend where the trout went after it broke off. He said it stormed downstream immediately.

There really wasn't much downstream. There was an oblong culvert that went under the highway. It looked to have maybe 2 feet of depth and 4 feet in width. I got down and peeked in the culvert and there were a couple logs jammed in there. The culvert looked about 40 feet long. It went out on the other side of the road.

The other side of the road was very shallow with a small weed-choked hole there. Downstream of that hole was really shallow again. This trout was a mystery to me.

I went back to the original hook up area. I sat down for a while and assessed the hole. The sun shifted and I could see down to the bottom very easily. The mystery was solved in my mind. I did a little more inspection and I thought I knew where this big girl lived.

Just in front of the culvert going under the road I saw clues. As I looked upstream going in to the hole I saw it too. There were impressions and underwater tracks of a big trout laying on the bottom. My buddy saw them too. He had dismissed them as possible tracks from someone wading or a muskrat cruising the area. The tracks were impressions of a big trout laying on the bottom. I was certain of it.

My hypothesis was that the trout lived in that culvert under the road. She came out during low light periods or she was a nocturnal feeder. The tracks of where she came from were obvious and I got my friend to believe the same. I told him he should tell his Dad about my theory and a night time assault was in order.

A couple days went by and I heard nothing. This big trout puzzle was too much for me to withstand. I geared up in olive drab and sized up my line and hook size and off I went last night in search of the monster.

I was in place by 8pm. There was still a little light so I could get down there and knock down some grass and orient myself. I planted myself in the path of the monster so I could see if she came out of the culvert.

By 9pm it was quite dark. I had caught 3 tiny smallmouth and and 2 dinky browns. I was about to leave and I heard a commotion from the culvert. There was a little splashing going on. I was smiling then. I thought she was coming out. It was so dark I saw nothing.

It was 9:30pm and nothing had hit for over 40 minutes and I decided to leave. Because it was dark I was relying on sound too. I heard what I thought was a tail movement breaking the surface of the water or as I like to call it a twick. I decided a little more time was needed.

It was pitch dark and the only light I got was residual light from cars passing. I did not turn my head toward the culvert for fear of spooking my prey. I just looked far out of the corner of my eye as a vehicle went by. My eyes focused on something moving. There wasn't enough light to see how big it was but it swam right by me. It was no more than 12 feet away in 2 feet of water.

I did see something that looked odd to me. I could see white in the water swimming by me. I had thought about the description of the trout from my friend. She had dark bronze colored sides and a really fat snow white belly.

The light bulb went on in my head. I was seeing her white belly going by. She was only 10 feet from my crawler. I braced for a huge bite. I set the hook hard on the first nibble. About a 6 inch trout went flying over my head on my line.

This is a skinny male brown trout with bronze colors. Look at his white belly. Imagine the white I saw swim by with an extremely fat female brown.

The wake of the big girl was huge as she turned and she stormed back in to her culvert to hide. I was really angry that the little brown had beat her to my bait. I released the 6 inch flying brown trout back to the hole unscathed I am not defeated. I need to give her at least a week rest before I try her again

[redneckdan]

Ha flying trout!

Reminds me of a time I was catching steelies on size 10 Adams flies and an 8 weight. Had a hen rising to the fly and a little 6 inch brookie zipped past and grabbed the fly from her mouth. I reared back to set on the steelie and here comes a brookie rocketing out of the water. I'm not sure who was more surprised. Me or the trout piñata hanging in the pines behind me. He was returned to the water slightly dazed but otherwise unharmed.

[MN BassFisher]

That sounds like an awesome story/hunt I hope you can bring her to hand and get a few pictures. Big Brown in a culvert, that is an odd place!!!

[Driftless]

Can you see Sam's head peaking out of the weeds?

The hole is not very deep. Maybe 3.5 feet at max. The top of the hole necks down and really shallow. The bottom of the hole is a culvert about 2 feet deep and 4 feet wide oblong pipe that goes under the road.

The photo is taken upstream from the highway. I am standing where the culvert goes under the road.

Sam and I hit the hole at 7:30pm. This where the big broke him off about 2 weeks ago. She is about a 26 inch extremely fat female brown.

Sam's head is exactly where he hooked her before. Sam is seated in the above photo. On prior break off he was standing and it was 4pm.

Sam waited 2 hours for her to come out and she declined. Sam walked up to the culvert and dangled his worm in the opening a couple times. The third time she came blasting out of the culvert and attacked the crawler and went back in the culvert never to return this evening. I was watching from a distance and planned on being net man and photographer.

This trout is truly a puzzle.

How/when/with what would you attack this hole???