Remember that you heard it here first. The new Sunburst System for reporting fishing success. I have come up with this system which takes fish size as well as the number of fish caught and puts them in an easy to understand format for determining fishing success, expressed as inches of fish per minute. This system won't get me rich or famous but should soon be taught in schools along with the Dewey Decimal system, and New York's public transportation system. You may ask how this system came into existence, keep reading and you'll find out.
It all started yesterday at about 15:45. My mowing was done, Amy and Molly were in town and I found myself with 45 free minutes before the school bus was due to arrive with Eli. I could either relax and catch the last half of Dr. Phil or sneak down for a little fishing in front of the house. Fishing it was! I quickly donned my waders, grabbed my rod and camera and headed to slippery riffle for a few minutes of chucking and ducking. I entered the water at around 15:55 and on my third drift hooked and landed a 12" brown. At this point it was 15:58 and I was off to a blistering pace of 4" fpm. After a quick release I continued nymphing down this quick run and several minutes later was brought to attention by an explosive take. Now I have caught hundreds of trout a few over 20", but this fish hit like no other I can remember. It took the fly with such force that I immediately looked down to make sure I didn't have my fly line wrapped around anything and as I did so I heard a thunderous splash. With fly line cleared I looked up to see a tsunami headed my way. Granted, this was not a large tsunami, but anytime a fish throws a wave like this when it jumps you must have something good. Wishing I would have seen the creature jump, my mind was racing wondering what was on the other end of my line. Lime green fly line tore off my Galvan reel as my quarry once again showed itself. Shooting out of the water like Shamu at Sea world was the biggest brown trout I had ever seen hooked to my fly. As the fish entered the water it once again took off peeling line as it went. In typical brown trout style this fish settled in the deepest swiftest current and bulldogged it's way around slowly taking back line that I had worked so hard to gain. After a few minutes I fought the fish onto the shallow shelf where I was standing. She quickly showed that this was not where she wanted to be, once again taking off like a bonefish on the flats, again shooting out of the water in an attempt to free herself. This tug of war would go on for what seemed like an hour, and with no net several attempts at grabbing the fish were met with disappointment. Eventually this athlete tired, as did the fish and I was able to bring her to hand. I luckily had a tape measure and camera in my waders and quickly snapped a picture and took a measurement. My worthy opponent, a beautiful female brown trout, measured right at 23" and while I didn't get a girth measurement she was fat, looking like a rugby ball each time she lept from the river. My fishing officially ended at 14:12 only 17 minutes after the trip had started, half of this time spent fighting the biggest trout of my life. Catching 2 fish while waiting for the bus didn't seem that impressive to me, but catching 35 inches of fish in 17 minutes did. While I don't plan on getting a patent for the Sunburst System I hope this blog will make it's way to the history books in the near future as the story that popularized a new way of measuring fishing success.
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