Big Brown = Big Teeth

Reader Steve Wood sent us this story of a big Georgia brown caught by angler William Davis some weeks back. When his thumb slid into the fish’s mouth, the release became more of a bloody affair than William had planned:
“I had been aiming for stripers on the Chattahoochee for several weekends. I really wanted to take one on a flyrod. That particular morning I decided to get to the river before sunrise. The river was unusally high and slightly silted. Visiblilty was low due to extreme fog, making for interesting fishing conditions. There was one other person out striper fishing as well. I was throwing white streamers against a rock wall for an hour or so with a 7wt. rod with no luck. I laid the flyrod down for a few minutes and switched to a baitcaster rigged with a large white bucktail jig. The first cast resulted in an enormous strike. I thought it was a striper for a few seconds but realized it was something else. After a few minutes of battle, trying to get the fish around the anchor line, the fish rose whereupon I realized it was a very large Brown trout. The other fellow came rushing towards me in his boat armed with a big gaff offering his services. I politely declined. I was able to gently lift the trout up for a few quick photos. After getting him situated just so, he decided to make a meal out of my thumb. He bit down with razor sharp teeth. You can see from the grimace on my face that he was having some success in shredding my thumb. After a few seconds he succumbed to few seconds of photography and measuring then was quickly released safely back to the river. 29 inches! What a fish! The other fellow was stunned. He couldn’t believe I’d release such a fish. He almost looked angry. He sped off shaking his head. I wiped the blood from my hand, smiling as I did so, knowing that the fish had gotten the better of me. It pleases me to know that there are such fish only minutes from Atlanta.”