Favorite fish/story/trip of 2024?

[G_Smolt]

This might be a dumb question, but when you get into the wild 30” trout, will it fight the same as a comparable steelhead, or is the salty one still supreme?

It's been my experience that it varies by river.
Neither of these fish got too far I to the backing - maybe 75'-80' for the chunky fella. They both dogged it pretty good for most of the fight, and I had to put a lot of side pressure on the 7wt 10' fishpole to get them to the net.

The Bristol Bay 30"+ (shoot, even the 27"+ class) are entirely different animals. I've lost several large ones with nearly 200yds of backing out on an 8wt spraypole. Rare is the Bbay blimp that doesn't take you for a ride.

TBH, if you tied a 30" Bbay 'bow tail-to-tail with a 30" steelhead, the rainbow would be dragging a carcass around after about 15 minutes...