Ron had called me on Saturday evening letting me know that the ice had gone out of one of our favorite haunts and as our planned weekend trip had been postponed, I jumped at the chance to shake the cob webs out of the boat. As you know, we always hit what ever lake we are fishing at daylight and usually fish until dark. Brown trout, at least for us, usually bite way early and way late, so when I got the hard hit at 1:15 PM in the afternoon I pretty much figured it was a Laker acting tough in really cold water. The fish put on a sizzling run and shook his head more than usual as I fought him, but I have had lots of Lakers do that, so when he rolled on the surface and showed us his square tail, things got pretty exciting. I worked him towards the boat and about 10 feet out he decided to jump, but I had him hooked hard with the 6 inch skinny AC Plug. My bud put a great net on him and he weighed 10 lbs 14 ounces and was 30.25 inches long. After all my years trophy fishing and chasing Brown Trout, I finally put a good hookjaw in the boat and to think I could have been somewhere else if those lakes had been ice free.

John Krmpotich