Halfpounders are a gift from the Fish God.......

[MSP]

BTW, where the heck is MSP? He's a big HP guy, has he gone missing?

Sorry Adam I've been up North chasing around a few Pounders!

[Adam Grace]

Mike, good for you, very nice fish, did you catch these on your last trip? Or are they from 2 years ago when you stayed up north?

Ed, very funny post, I needed that this morning Another fly for them to ignore We all can relate to that.

[MSP]

Adam, I got those on Sat.

[Adam Grace]

I HATE you!

You are Fishy Sir, very very Fishy, congrats.

Maybe you'll grace me with some of your fishy-ness in early October!

Glad that you got out and stuck some beauties buddy.

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

Very nice Mike....thanks.

[jbird]

Mike

I am very happy for you. You deserve it! I love the way you compose your pictures with the fish in deep enough water to get away! Thats really cool.

Jay

[Charlie Gonzales]

Wow,dont I look/feel pretty stupid right now Guess Im not used to see Andy hold anything less than 15#'s......or is it the lack of sleep from working nights;yeah ...thats the ticket

[WinterrunRon]

Of course being the veteran fly fisherman that I am I only had a box of caddis patterns with me. Luckily, I found a size 16 Kaufmans Timberline Emerger on my hat band. A tug here and a snip there, some paste floatant to hold the changes in place and viola, another fly for them to ignore. Actually I did manage 3 on that fly, but they were retarded. This evening they wanted the same bug only in the emerger stage, and since I was prepared, I caught 2 out of about a thousand that were rising around me. Damn, I'm good. :

[WinterrunRon]

I'm not saying that isn't a great fish, it is a gorgeous steelhead that anyone would be proud to catch. But let's be realistic about that fish for a second, I think the facts are there if you look closely. Take your fingers, spread them a bit, and put a ruler on it. Multiply that by 4 and you'll have a good estimate of that fish's length. I know my hand is about 4.25" wide when spread like the hand above and that fish is about 4 +/- hand widths long, so by my math that's somewhere around 17+/- inches. If the guy has really big hands then maybe it might be pushing 20". I would be amazed if that fish is an honest over 20. You never know the way fish stories are told, fish have a real tendency to grow after they are caught.

If you want to see a 24", 4-lb steelhead, check out the photo contest, there is one there you can look at that I posted. That fish was 24.5" long and probably about 4 lbs. Take the width of my left hand in the photo from the base of my thumb to the edge of my palm which is just about 4". If you take that approximate width and superimpose it on the fish, you'll see the fish is about 6 times the width of my hand. I taped that fish so I know how long it was. Imagine my hand holding that fish one-handed like the halfpounder above, and there would be a heck of a lot more fish sticking off either side in the photo.

Holy cow! Last time I saw that many +, - /, ", ., signs and calculations requiring imagination in a fishing post... well, come to think of it, I haven't.

BTW, that's one of the nicest looking fish I've seen from the American in recent weeks! Very nice, Andy.

[roostersgt]

Fished another famous secret riffle last night. Not sure where all the photogenic "true half-pounders" are on this river. I've put in over 30 hours in the past three weeks and cannot seem to find them. Andy makes it look too easy.

I'm not going to include pics this time due to the 11 "half-pounders" I caught and landed last night on stimulators being only 10" - 14"' inches. I must have missed 20-30 smaller ones. My hook setting with the 6 wt launched a 12" er all the way through my back cast and loaded my Scott rod nicely. I'll be switching to my 4/5 wt rod.

Cheers!