The Last Cast

We all got up at 5 in the morning to head out fishing and were supprised to see 2" of snow on the ground. We thought about sleeping in but we went out anyway. After 11 hours of fishing and dosens of trout my dad put away his rod and walked down stream to check out the water and finish his beer. I was in a nice hole trying to get about a 14 inch rainbow to bite. "You should cast over here," my dad said "There is about a 4 pounder down there!" I was content where I was but decided to head downstream. I slowly crawled to the spot my dad told me about and made my final cast of the day. I was fishing with an ultra light rod with 4 pound test flouro with a small worm threaded on a size 8 hook. I let the rig drift through the hole when it stopped. There was too much of a glare on the water so I had no clue whether I was hung up or it was this "4 pounder" my dad was talking about. I set the hook and it felt like I had a heavy loose branch that was slowly pulling towards me. Then through the glare the biggest trout I could imagine in such a small stream appeared and realized it was hooked. The drag was screaming as the fish bolted 20 yards upsteam in what felt like a second as my dad and I looked at eachother and laughed. The hole was deeper than we both thought and with the fish on the surface what looked like 4 pounds was actually 12. We thought there was no way of landing the fish on 4 pound test. After about 10 to 15 minutes of running up and down stream the crowd on the bridge started to build as the fish tired. I handed the rod to my dad and hand landed the fish since I didn't have a net. I thought for sure the fish would have been a broodstock but the dnr believes it migrated from the root river. Broodsock fish live in concrete walls and get dinged up pretty good. This fish was flawless. I'm glad I made that last cast.