For the ages

Based on yesterday, there isn't much urgency for Monday morning. I get to the platform at noon sharp.  Freddy is in the riffle and has reportedly caught two nice ones with nymphs.  He later confirms.  I get in at the slick and miss a great take on the second or third cast with the ant.  From there I decide it's time to migrate downstream to the point of rocks.  Santa Bill follows behind me.  I'm center river and he gets in a couple hundred feet below me to hunt the likely run center river.  I see him positioning, casting, and then I see a giant of a trout airborne and his 7 1/2 foot Echo three-weight doubled over. A couple more jumps and I think "holy shit." Even from that distance I can tell it's huge.

Suddenly there's a rise form to my left.  Hmmm.  I serve the ant in that direction, it drifts 10 ft, and then a toilet flushes engulfing my fly.  We're both hooked up.  I clear weeds from the line a couple times, lucky the fish is still on.  I finally net the beast. It's 23 to 24 inches based on the length of my net opening and the 20" mark on my wading stick.  Just huge, even for here.

He lands his and we rendezvous at a rock I'm sitting on, tired and shaking a little, processing what just happened.  I say to him, "we just caught the two biggest trout in this whole section of the ranch, at the same time!"  "That's the biggest trout I've ever caught not counting steelhead," he says.  He thanks me for advising him to switch his 5x out for 3x yesterday.  Neither of us had a prayer with anything lighter.  His measures 23 inches. 

Mine is certainly my biggest ranch fish of the year, and really as big as I can ever remember catching here in 40 years.  Day makers.  In some ways, trip makers.  I get some other takes and catch some other small fish but today is about this beautiful double hook up just below all the big rocks in the lowest of water with no one else in sight.

I can't hold this thing up without squeezing it to death.

Pictures will never do it justice..