It Takes Two

Last week I got a text from a respected angler and good friend, Brian Johnson.  He told me he was downtown eating and saw something worth "investigating" in the river.

We met downtown and he showed me what grabbed his attention earlier.  Sure enough.  What we didn't see was that there were 3 or 4 nice sized bows stacked up behind the beast.  On my second drift, a 20"er shot out from cover, pounced my nymph rig, and went to the net.  The pic below was shot from Brian's iPhone, which I specify because he is a gifted photgrapher, and visually lethal when the right gear is in his hands.

Notice Brian with baby Eisley in tow, behind me spotting.  Any man that can spot a trophy trout, eat a meal and never put his kid down is a model to us all.  While I wanted the big guy up front, I was happy to catch and release this one too.  Just before I put this fish back in the water, a man started screaming downstream:

"I'll give you $5 for that fish!!! Don't put him back!!!"

I looked up at Brian and shrugged.  "No chance" I mouthed.  Brian hollered back, "let him grow into a $10 fish!".  That was a better answer than what I had in mind.  As I let go and the bow swam off, the man on the bridge continued (I caught this on video):

"Damn it!  I was gonna pay you for it!"

"No thanks." I replied.  Here's to more $10 fish.