Ridiculous Over-Estimates

[Fin N Feathers]

Does anyone actually weigh their fish...? 26 inch 12lb rainbows and 25 lb browns like its common?... if im the only one ill be quiet but seriously... a reality check wouldnt hurt. I feel every trout is a trophy but claiming to catch 20lb browns and 15lb rainbows everyday really detracts from true achievement of a trophy size fish...

[pmjasper]

Eric will be the first to tell you that a 15 to 20 lb brown everyday is not a common occurance, but I can definitely vouge for the fact that I myself caught a solid 11 1/2 to 13 lb brown about a month ago, based on length and girth formulas.....and it wasn't a skinny fish. That's probably one of the largest browns I've caught and definitely the largest on the fly rod. Coming from the east coast a few years ago, a 5 lb trout was an extremely respectable fish but out here it's nothing. Just my trips to the local rivers has shown me some gigantic fish, browns and steelhead, not to mention salmon when they are in.

Well, I can't say how common these large fish are, and overestimates have always been something in fishing, but I can say without a doubt that Wisconsin has the largest average trout weight that I personally have seen anywhere in the country.

[blitzfish]

I notice this a lot to, especially with many guides (no offense eric, you tend to be right on!). They say that they are bigger so word of mouth spreads about their bigger fish. For example, in Port Washington, some Captains have pictures of the years fish on a board next to their boats, many of them with the sizes of the fish written on it. There is one that sticks out in my mind. It was a picture of a rainbow that had 17#s written on it. The fish was 10#s at best. I have caught lots of fish bigger than that one was. I just get a laugh out of it with friends sometimes, but I definitely know what you mean.