Caught last week on a trip designed to find one of these monsters. It put up a fine account and as you can see is a beautiful specimen.

Not a particularly glamourous shot but shows the shoulder.
Went 7 and a half and took a silver tube tight on the bottom of a shelf.

Back there this week in search of more of the same!
Piscator

amazing brownie. huge tail.

jim

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The Fishermans Friend is the Flirty Fly,Fickle Food for Fleeting Fish.

But for a very deep hook and a bleed this beauty would have gone back. The take and first run was just awe inspriing. I have never been party to such a wonderful capture. We waited 3 and a half hours for this fish and worked hard for it. Taking it in turns on the oars.
Just wnoderful.
Piscator

I have no concerns about keeping the fish but is it not out of season for brownies now, even in the south (thought they tended to wind up at the end of september). Its an ugly brute!

Thats A Belter#####

I read somewhere that on grafham you catch back end grown on big brownies on tubes fishing the rudder method. Have I got that all right and is it the case with your fish ? well fed looking fella dont think he bothers chasing buzzers much

Most stillwaters in England and Wales take the brownie season into October.

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“There is no more lovely country than Monmouthshire in early spring. Nowhere do the larks sing quite so passionately, as if somehow inspired by the Welsh themselves. There is a blackbird on every thorn and a cock chaffinch, a twink as they call him there, on every bush...... It moved me profoundly. I had been spared to see another spring, and I thank God for it.”

Oliver Kite
“A Spring Day on the Usk”
A Fisherman’s Diary

Lovely fish. Not too many of those cuaght in a season!

In the old days a friend and I discovered loads of BIG fish stuck in creek behind a fence that run across Savages. They had chased bait into there but couldn't get out. We fished minkies and had a limit each consisting of browns to 7lb and rainbows to 8lb. There wasn't a fish under 4lb.

Hi the fish was taken trolling on oars. We had two lines out a Cortland Lead cored line and an Airflo Di 8. This took the Cortland. The tube had a foam tube tied from back of tube to front a sort of "Boob Tube". It helps keep it off the bottom. We saw a shelf on the depth finder and rowed for another 20 yards then turned 90 degrees and speeded up. Suddenly and almighty wallop followed by an exciting 5 minute battle. (I think some people exagerate the length of the scrap or use rods without sufficient back bone to tackle decent fish).
Season for browns end at the end of October down south. If anyone interested the fish tasted fine cut into large traverse steaks and slow cooked in wine, shallots and olive oil with herbs.......

Piscator,
Did you spoon the fish and if so what had he been feeding on?