One of the worst situations that a person can find themselves in is being in a situation where a camera is needed and there isn't one available. I realize that on most fishing trips a camera isn't at all necessary, but a camera is a good thing to have with you when the unexpected happens. Am I talking about having a Yeti cross your path? No, but a camera would be nice in that situation. I'm talking about the times when the unusual happens, like getting a hold of the fish of the season. This is what happened to me 2 years ago, and you don't want to make the same mistake that I did.

I had lived in Montana for about five years and had fished the same river 90% of the time. The river is a perfect trout fishing river and reminds me of the one I learned how to fish on. In any case I love this river and had fished on it for the better part of five years. The fishing was quite good also, with 18 + inch native trout being a really common occurrence, and twenty inch trout happening at least once a week.

An old friend came to visit me and spend a week fishing, after I had told him about the river. This friend was the person I grew up fishing with, and his father is the one who taught me how to trout fish. He was in heaven, and amazed by the size of the trout we caught. Having been used to trout fishing on the east coast, this river produced these larger trout at an almost amazing rate. He made the comment before he left, that there was no reason that I couldn't catch 23 + inch native trout out of this particular river. I wholeheartedly agreed with him, and continued my fishing for the next couple of years.

I obviously had gotten to know the river quite well during my years of fishing it, but still my really large fish had eluded me. You see my friends and I are ultra light anglers, so we use only ultra light rods and reels spooled with four pound test for all of our river fishing. Using this size equipment makes landing 20 + inch fish a real challenge. It's a lot of fun though, and the reason I do, what I do. In any case the really large fish had continued to avoid me.

Then one day, I was having my normal day fishing on my favorite river, catching and releasing trout up to 18 inches when something happened. I got a nice bite and set the hook. At that point all hell broke loose, with a really large trout going crazy. It was jumping out of the water; then would go deep and sit there. To make a long story short the battle went on for an hour, before I finally landed the huge trout. It was 24 inches and a true trophy. When I went into my fishing vest to capture this fish on camera, I realized that I didn't have a camera with me! I had needed a new one for over a year and had been putting it off.

I caught the biggest trout I had ever caught in my life, that I had been trying to catch for 5 years, and had no way of capturing the moment. I practice catch and release fishing, so I had to release this trophy without capturing a picture of it. The fish still lives in my memory, but I sure wish I had a picture to share with the non believers. Always make sure you have a camera with you while fishing, because you just never know when you're going to need it.

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