Particularly Memorable Takes

[Northern]

Was just thinking about a moment from a recent trip that will be forever imprinted in my memory.

Share your favorite eats for the rest of us to enjoy!

Here's mine from a couple weeks ago:
@FishingGirl and I were floating the Kootenai with a particularly fun guide, and the big dry bite was on. As we approached a seam, the guide pointed to it and said something like "next fish will be right there"
FG's fly lands perfectly just upstream of the seam, 2 seconds later mine lands 5 feet behind hers on the same drift, and another second later both flies get eaten simultaneously!
Everybody wins!!

 

[kmudgn]

I was on a float on the Big Hole in MT. The guide was particularly awful and someone I would not use again at gunpoint. I had an orange Hornberg in my vest and showed it to the guide. He laughed at it and said it would never catch fish in MT. He did not want to put it on, so I did. Second cast I got a really big Rainbow.
It was over 10 years ago and I still think about that take!

 

[Matt B]

Over 20 years ago I was a young unmarried guy living in Atlanta and had a lot of time to fish, so fished the Chattahoochee a lot. I can distinctly remember fishing a wooly bugger in a fast run, casting into the rapid and stripping it out and getting the most jolting take I can imagine. The fish broke off immediately. Could’ve been a hawg brown, but I suspect it was a migratory striped bass.

 

[Matt B]

Another…my first time fishing the Clark Fork, not long after moving west. One of my first times fishing out of a drift boat, maybe the first. I cast a large yellow bodied elk hair winged stimmy/stoney thing into an eddy. It drifted for two seconds and a huge fish did a head and shoulders take on it. We saw it clearly. I promptly farmed the fish and broke it off. “What was THAT?!?” We both said.

It was a giant fish that you messed up, Matt, that’s what it was and I will probably never forget it.

 

[copperJon]

About 10 years ago on the Bogey, my father is fishing a run, gets the eat, and then proceeds to get spooled 200 yards or so upstream in a matter of seconds. He still talks about it. I still laugh about it.

Similarly, I was fishing the beach with a 6wt before dawn one morning, sweeping the fly across before recasting, when the water EXPLODED in front of my feet, line ripped out of my hands, into my backing about 50 yards, then POP! Never saw a thing, never saw my $100 Ambush again. I still laugh about it. And now I’m anal about checking my backing for the tiniest of backlash.

 

[Long_Rod_Silvers]

Hard to beat a steelhead dry take. This one in particular sticks with me because he came almost entirely out of the river.

Many years later, the oso slide happened right upstream from here.

 

[Billy]

Few come to mind...

I remember a rise to a Adam's on East Lake when I was about 12 that was truely a toilet bowl flush.

I remember teasing my dad when he tied on some giant dry fly salmon fly thing on Lenice. He then had a 25 inch brown slurp it up first cast.

I remember fishing with @Matt Paluch and almost first cast I got a 6 pound smallie on a yellow buck tail popper: I'm sure a few more will come to mind

 

[troutpocket]

I can think of several good fish that ate streamers when I had a really good sense that it was going to happen. You’re fishing along, getting into a groove, working the minnow, leech, whatever with real confidence but nothing happens until you find the perfect spot. Hit the cast, a couple strips and there’s weight on the line because that big fish just inhaled your bug. Usually not even a strong tug, just weight. Then head shakes and everything goes bonkers. I like those moments

 

[BriGuy]

Didn't have a fly rod in hand, but I snuck onto a private pond when I was a teenager in Montana to do a little recon. As I was watching a dragonfly flying about a foot above the water suface a brook trout (only about 8-10 inches) launched straight up out of the water and picket the dragonfly off. I was impressed with the accuracy and elegance of that take. I thought it was one of the coolest things i've seen and still have that image imprinted on my brain.

 

[Smalma]

I agree with LRS - it is pretty hard to beat some of the skating dry "eats" by summer steelhead. Without a doubt of those takes the most heart stopping has to be that improbable steelhead take when the steelhead launches itself entirely out of the water in its rush to get that "bug". Generally, in such takes either the fish in its clumsy effort or the angler in their saw dropping surprise fail to make the connection resulting in a hooked fish. On the NF Stilli in the early 1980s twice both the fish and I got it right and the fish was hooked and landed. The first the fish grabbed the fly on the way up and the second I somehow, I held off on the hook set until the fish took the fly on the way down!

Curt

 

[_WW_]

Some steelhead takes are amazing. Had a Deer Creek fish break 8# maxima tippet on the grab and a second later jump out of the water wearing my fly. Another take on a different river involved a running take that ended when the fish came off down stream with my backing out. My clicker reel made a new sound that day, one that I'd not heard before. Before winding in the line I popped the spool out to look inside thinking for sure something was amiss and my day was over at 6:00 am...and discovered nothing wrong. It had just never spun around that fast before, or since.

 

[Stonedfish]

On the beach. Watching a king take a sandlance pattern right at my rod tip.
I eventually lost the fish after a good battle but seeing the entire take and then the broadside view as it took off on the first run was fun to watch. Still a great memory lots of fun on a 6 wt.
SF

 

[Buzzy]

Day 5 on the Thompson. Earlier in the trip, I'd watched my friend DK land two nice steelhead (Graveyard and one other run), I hadn't had so much as a sniff. Early in the morning on that second to last fishing day, we hiked across the boulder field to the Top of the Y, I waded in first and started working the run while DK parked on a rock to watch. I can't remember how many casts/step downs I'd made when I felt that pluck. Missed it! Without stepping down, I did a Snap-T, set up the cast and somehow managed to get a good cast and I'll be darned if that fish didn't take again at exactly the same place in the swing. Only this time luck was on my side. A big buck came out of the water, all the way out of the water then cartwheeled a few times before heading for the ocean. I can still remember that first pluck and the one that followed on the next cast. The fly:

The buck taped 40" in length.

 

[Pink Nighty]

The other day i was casting a damselfy along the edge of some pond slop. When my fly was about 8ft from the water, a bulge appeared in the slop and shot towards where my fly was going to land. As soon as my fly hit the water a 12" smallie busted it and hooked up.

I've had fish hit a fly the moment it hit water, but this is the only one I saw track it in the air.

 

[Pink Nighty]

A Chum that absolutely hammered me about 1/3 of the way through my swing, reel screamed at the hookset and never quieted again. Big porpoising jumps about 5 seconds after the take, jumping so far and fast downstream the reel kept singing even while it was airborne. He ended up wrapping me on a stick and stealing my rod and reel, but that take was the most vicious fishing experience of my life.

 

[DimeBrite]

✂️ Juvenile Tarpon Fly Fishing

49 seconds · Clipped by Megalops_Ignobilis · Original video "A fish to end the day on" by Timothy Till

youtube.com

Most tarpon grabs are very fun. I love their runs and jumps.

 

[clarkman]

Probably my favorite eat from a tiger (although, you never forget your first). This was from several years ago. I caught this same fish a total of 4 times over the course of 2 years. A solid mid-40s fish (44"-48"). It had a distinct hump on it plus cheek markings. But, this particular day, it was hanging out on tip of this weed mat that reached up to a foot under the surface. I worked it for 15+ minutes from every single angle & on the second time working around it's world, I dropped the fly about 5 feet out, twitched it a couple of times, then gave one hard strip. One flick of it's tail and it inhaled the fly....so fucking awesome!

 

[Long_Rod_Silvers]

Probably my favorite eat from a tiger (although, you never forget your first). This was from several years ago. I caught this same fish a total of 4 times over the course of 2 years. A solid mid-40s fish (44"-48"). It had a distinct hump on it plus cheek markings. But, this particular day, it was hanging out on tip of this weed mat that reached up to a foot under the surface. I worked it for 15+ minutes from every single angle & on the second time working around it's world, I dropped the fly about 5 feet out, twitched it a couple of times, then gave one hard strip. One flick of it's tail and it inhaled the fly....so fucking awesome!

That picture is freaking fantastic!

 

[Mossback]

Was fishing for sea run cutts on the Snoqualmie below Fall City and had been having a decent day, late October. Had my 7'6" 5wt with a Cortland Crown reel, as I was just getting into the fly game and was swinging a small spider pattern of my own design just under the surface and watched a nice summerrun follow it almost to the bank, do the snatch and turn, heading downstream straight away and jumped all the way out out 3 times, moving faster than any fish I had ever hooked.
Fly came loose, I about shit myself, and can still see those jumps in my mind.

 

[IHFISH]

The big cutt in my “one for four” post materializing like a ghost above a submerged stump and the white of its gums standing out against the tannin water.

This largemouth was crashing around a little pocket cove presumably knocking damsels or dragons off the reeds and it came down on top of an orange and yellow frog gurgler just as it was touching down.
A rod tip eat from a 15” coho on a very clear water beach on opening weekend in MA9 with 15-20 fish at least immediately behind it moving almost like a single organism.