Hellbender Encounter

[jwebb541]

here's one from deep creek. I would have guessed him around 3 ft.

[stuart]

Most people will tell you that hey don't eat fish. I guess this settles that. That is awesome. I haven't seen one in a long time. The ones in the river here get really black. I have seen them be brown too. They say they are a good test of water purity. IF you see them, the creek is in good shape.

STU

[jeffnles1]

I would love to see one of those critters. I just hope if I ever get the opportunity that i don't 'scream like a little girl' and scare it & everything else in the water away.

I loved the photos thanks for sharing,
Jeff

[JoeFred]

Once when fishing the Hiwassee I looked down and saw a large light brown mass on the bottom. My first thought was... didymo!!! Fortunately it was only a hellbender.

JF

[Worrgamesguy]

That's the strangest looking brown I've ever seen. I need to work on my fish identification, I came in here and thought it was a rainbow because of how silver he was. Now that I paid attention I see his spots, but where are the orange spots and dark coloring? Humph, learn something new everyday.

But I would definitely scream like a little girl if I saw that. I've only had a handful of encounters with wildlife when I was fishing, all in West Virginia. I was fishing on some large rocks when a lizard jumped and I thought it was a snake, so I tripped and fell down a few rocks luckily unhurt. I've also tried to get off similar rocks going up the slope like I did coming down, except I hear rattling from an unknown direction. But the worst was I was fishing and I saw a beaver swimming downstream with a branch, thought it was cool, and continued fishing. About 5 minutes later I hear the water below the rock I was standing on (about 3 feet from the top of the water) explode and water sprays up. I fell backwards onto the rock spraining my wrist, I look up expecting to see a massive brown swimming in the river, but no, its that beaver glaring at me.

[Slipstream]

You mentioned the color of the brown trout originally shown. This trout was right out of the hatchery truck, since I caught it in a delayed harvest stream. However, the varied colors of brown trout amaze me and is one of the great pleasures of catching them. The differences in color may lie in whether the trout came from the german strain or scottish strains that were originally brought to this country. Or it may have something to do with habitat and diet. I caught a brown on the NC side of the park two weeks ago that was almost pure silver, with a few vey faint spots. I did a double take on this fish because I first thought it was a rainbow.



Contrast that with the brown I was lucky enough to catch this weekend on the Nantahala.



Treasure every brown, because every one is unique.