To give the backstory behind what was a VERY impressive fish...

Dad, Luke and I began Saturday with the intentions of floating the Yough from Confluence to Ohiopyle in our new boat. We arrived at Ohiopyle around 8:30 and got the boat in at Confluence around 10:00 after tracking down a maintenance man and a park ranger to make absolutely sure we were going to be able to get the boat out at Ohiopyle when we arrived. We floated roughly half the stretch throwing streamers at the banks and nymphing some of the deeper runs to no avail.  

Winter Float - not a leaf to be seen

We did not even get a mock charge or bump from a fish in roughly four miles of water. Speculation began quickly that the water was too cold (it probably was) to have active fish, or maybe it was just our lack of experience on that stretch of water. We continued to float , fish and get the hang of what was required to handle the boat in what was sometimes a bit rougher water than what we should have chosen for a couple of virgins on the oars. Shortly after we all became comfortable with the fact that we probably weren't going to catch anything that day, Luke and I both had charges on articulated streamers.

My fish took after some careful coaxing, but Luke's disappeared as quickly as it had come. Luke hooked one more shortly after and we all felt a bit better about not coming home smelling of skunk.

Dad surveys the situation

Luke and Dad continued to pound the banks as I rowed us down through some relatively slow, deep, boulder filled water. I was keeping an eye on Luke's tandem wooly buggers being pulled back just under the surface when a head the size of a football appeared, broke the surface as it inhaled one of the buggers and went right back down as if it had just sucked in a trico spinner. Luke quickly rammed the hook home and yelled "What the hell was that!?" as the big brown dove deep and veered quickly into the current. It came out later that Luke thought the fish was a carp, but Dad and I both caught a glance of the fish and knew that it was a very substantial brown. Panic quickly set in for all three of us and a person watching for a distance must have thought someone threw a stick of dynamite into the bottom of the boat. Keep in mind that none of us had ANY experience landing a fish from a moving boat, let alone what is quite possibly the fish of a lifetime for Luke.

I glanced downstream to see a large set boulder filled riffles and did all I could do to steer the boat into some softer current as Dad grabbed the net (thanks again J!) and Luke fought the fish. After a few very nervous minutes, 28" of brown slid into the net and some very loud screams of excitement echoed down through the river valley. None of us had ever seen a river brown that big in PA and we could hardly contain ourselves. Photos were taken and high fives were thrown as the fish was sent back to the water.

Pretty nice -Boat

Beauty and release unharmed

With renewed hope, we proceeded to float the rest of the stretch without even moving another fish before taking out around 6:30. The rest of the day was not without excitement though. Some tricky rapids gave almost as much excitement as the big brown and definitely kept all of our heart rates up for the duration of the float. All in all, the boat is still in one piece, we are all much more comfortable on the oars and one of us has a very big notch to put in his belt....

See you all soon,

Mike                                                         

Luke and "The Fish"