Fish with JD » Trophy Room

Extreme Fish Porn: 30-Pound Steelhead Edition!

JD — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 06:33:54 +0000

OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG!

Well, sometimes you just need a little fish porn. And man, what a week it’s been for that! I probably should have saved this fish for last because it dwarfs the 20 pounders below, but holy giant rainbow trout, Batman…that is one amazing specimen is it not?

All I know about this leviathan is that it was caught last weekend and measured 44 inches by 24 inches, which using the steelhead weight formula, comes out at 32 freaking pounds! WOW!!!!! My jaw just hit the floor!

And, just for kicks, here are a couple other 20 plus pounders…

This one was taken by Paul LeFebvre of Brookings, OR. He caught and released the fish Feb. 1 on the Chetco River while fishing with guide Andy Martin of Wild Rivers Fishing. The steelhead hit a cluster of roe and took a half hour to subdue!

Twenty plus pounds of Perfection!

Our pal Greg McElroy sent in this pic of Tim Obert who fished just south of the Chetco, on California’s Smith River with Mad River Eggs for this low 20′s buck.

Damn, raise your hand if you work day just got totally screwed…

432.4-pound Yellowfin Tuna a New World Record?

JD — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 16:07:09 +0000

Could this be the next world record for yellowfin?

This 90×62-inch yellowfin tuna was taken taken by Ron Tegland out of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico and weighed nearly 30 pounds more than the current world record! We’ll have to see what develops with this story in the near future. Regardless of the outcome, that is one massive tuna!!

Read the whole story at my former longtime employers and good friends: WESTERN OUTDOOR NEWS

20-Pound Steelhead from the Chetco River

JD — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 17:11:06 +0000

Welcome to the 20-pound club! Guide Tony Sepulveda (L) and John Sellers

It’s time to welcome the 20-Pound Steelhead Club’s newest member, John Sellers of Fortuna, CA, who fished on Tuesday with guide Tony Sepulveda of Greenwater Guide Service on a very low and clear Chetco River in Orgeon for this bruiser buck.

Let’s let Tony tell the rest of the story…

“John hooked the fish drifting roe and a Fish Pill along a shallow break,” he says. “When he swung on the bite, it erupted in 18″ of water and went burning off the flat with it’s back out of the water like a spooked bonefish!”

Congratulations are in order for John…fish like that don’t come every day. And to that end, he thoughtfully opted to release it, despite the ridiculous regulation in Oregon that allows for the retention of wild steelhead.

“John’s a relative newcomer to steelhead fishing, catching his first on the Eel with me last winter,” says Tony. “With his big fish resting in the net, we talked about the importance of keeping those genetics in the gene pool. John was immediately on board. We took a few pictures and sent him on his way. We ended the day by 1:00 pm with 6 landed out of 10 hooked, a 20 pounder and a double hookup. Not a bad day!”

Top 3 Giant Halibut of 2011

JD — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 12:46:27 +0000

Holy beer batter Batman, 2011 may just go down as the “Year of the Halibut!” There were three absolute monsters taken last fall that are more in the “blimp hangar door” class than barn doors.

First up is this one above from Norway which weighed an almost hard to fathom 539 pounds! Here’s the link

This monster came from the waters off Gustavus, Alaska (near Glacier Bay) and was 95 inches long and weighed 482.5 pounds! Read more at Bloody Decks

Then there was the one from Iceland that tipped the scales to 485 pounds! See more at Outdoor Life

Another near-lake record largemouth bass for Big Fred Contaoi!

JD — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 19:04:39 +0000

What a 5-gallon bucket with fins looks like...

The weather’s been a bit crazy back at Lake Falcon, on the Texas-Mexico border, but that hasn’t stopped our pal and intergalactic basin’ superstar Big Fred Contaoi from catching a mess o’ bass…including this 14-pouund toad that’s just shy of the lake record!

Contaoi hooked the thing in the trees on an 11-inch plastic worm and said it fought really well…it ripped line and even tried to get its obese body airborne. To see his record setting bass from Percy Priest Lake in Nashville, TN, click HERE

Chetco River pumps out 65-pound Chinook Salmon!!!

JD — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 03:55:55 +0000

Oregon’s Chetco River has a good reputation for producing jumbo king salmon but that still couldn’t have prepared Wayne Smith of Yreka for what was about to happen on Nov. 19 when this massive 65-pound Chinook engulfed his back-trolled T55 Hawg Nose FlatFish.

Wayne Smith and Andy Martin pose with Salmonzilla

After what must have been some very nervous moments, guide Andy Martin of Wild Rivers Fishing slipped the Beckman under the beast, which according to Martin, is the largest salmon of the year on the Oregon Coast (duh!) and one of the largest ever from the Chetco River.

All I can say is WOW!!

79-lb. White Sea Bass is a pending California State Record!

JD — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 04:04:07 +0000

Wow!

Barbecue at Justin Barry’s house! While fishing Monterey Bay with Kevin Seeger last week, Barry hoked and landed this 79-pound, 4-ounce white sea bass near Pajaro, which should be the next California State Record for the species.

Barry’s catch was weighed on a certified scale and bested the current mark, a 78 pounder caught by David Sternberg in Monterey in 2002.The paperwork is already in to the Department of Fish and Game and Barry should be in the record books soon!

Pending World Record fly-caught Alligator Gar

JD — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 09:42:25 +0000

IGFA Photo

Though alligator gar get to be the size of submarines, this 62-pound, 8 ouncer looks to be the largest ever taken on 16-pound test tippet and a fly rod and is a pending IGFA line class record.

Martin Arostegui of Coral Gables, FL, who has compiled more world records than anyone else in IGFA history, caught the big fish on Texas’ Lake Livingston on August 22, 2011 while working with Captain Kirk Kirkland.

Thirty minutes after the fish struck his custom fly, Arostegui was able to land, weigh and release the fish alive. With this catch, he kicked the living stuffing out of the current IGFA record, which is 24 pounds, 13 ounces!

81.8-lb. striped bass: A pending world record

JD — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 06:12:18 +0000

81.8 pounds!!!

Greg Myerson is no stranger to giant stripers…he’s caught a bunch of them, including 68 and 71 pounders, but even he was surprised when the largest striper ever taken on rod and reel ate the live eel he was drifting over a submerged boulder near Outer Southwest Reef off the coast of Westbrook, Connecticut. The fish measured 54 inches and took 20 minutes to land and is a pending All-Tackle IGFA World Record.

And get this: the fish already had a hook and several feel of leader in its mouth, so somebody before Myerson had a shot at the record striper!

To see more pics and read all the gory details, go to Field & Stream. Also, check out the 77 pounder taken off Block Island in June HERE

34.74-lb. rainbow trout smashes Idaho State Record!

JD — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 00:34:49 +0000

The rainbow that that it was a chinook...

Mark Adams of Pocatello, ID didn’t just break the Idaho State Record for rainbow trout with this 34.74 pounder, he blew it completely out of the water by nearly 15 pounds!

The Union Pacific Railroad locomotive engineer, 41, caught the beast in American Falls Reservoir Monday, Aug. 8. Apparently, the fight lasted 15 minutes…to see more pix and read the whole story, check out KTVB.com