Big Mad River Brown

[Baldeagle]

I recently started tying some Thunder Creek Streamers so I went over to the Mad River in Ohio to try them out on Wednesday. Aroound my 10th cast I hooked into a fish that I had trouble moving. I finally was able to beach it about 5 minutes later and it was a beautiful brown that was just over 25 inches long. That was by far the biggest brown that I have landed on the Mad. The sad part was that I was alone and had forgotten my camera!! I quickly released it so I will remember my camera the next time I fish that area.

One thing that was interesting was that the fish had a lot of red on its stomach where normally you would see the butter color. When it rolled once, I thought it was a big rainbow. Has anyone seen a large brown with a lot of red on the underside? It was a female as there was no kipe.

[Grannyknot]

Thats awesome baldeagle. Wish you had a picture. I tried to fish around the hwy 36 bridge earlier this year. Not only was there only about 3 inches of water in the river, but the algae was terrible. Glad it has made a recovery....hope the drought didn't hurt the big browns too bad.

With a few years of good rains, that river might once again be a Virginia style Spring creek.

[Groundhawg]

Great to hear that there are still some big browns in the Mad. With the low water this year, I haven't been on the Mad since spring. My buddy was able to get on the water last week and he caught three in the 10 inch range. In years past we consistently caught fish in the 12-16 inch range, but in the past year we haven't been so lucky. We have figured that the state hasn't been stocking as much due to budget cuts.