Awesome able

Very nice.  Its been too long since I fished the West Branch of the Ausable.  Beautiful country and great fishing. 

That's a beauty! Glad to see it is treating you well!

Lol twobob. It was a fatty with lots of girth and no fun clip.
Here's a better picture without the stretch. My kids take terrible pictures and I wanted a good up close shot of the colors.
Fyi, it's in the exact same spot we caught this rainbow a few years ago and I caught a bigger bow before there that I have only memory imprints.

Now sadly the river is mismanaged imo.
This is a catch and keep area ( only accessible by floating) but the catch and keep is fully capable of getting honkers and natural reproduction because of its deep bends to protect against anchor ice.
The C&R area is not and it's a zoo with guides and clients. Hungry trout alone has 11 guides and we seen plenty out and about pricking away.
Another terrible thing they did was to destroy 2 very old dams on the river which totally reduced the the holding waters above.
Where there was water , is now sandy banks and shallow runs. HUGE mistake.
Oh well. Happy father's day to all .

The rainbow was caught on a floating rapala and released.
The brown was caught on a nightcrawler, swallowed the hook and eaten for dinner last night .
If not mortality wounded, I would have released . My kids caught plenty to keep.
It was the only fish I kept all weekend.
I'm not opposed to either .

In 6 days I will be keeping all the legal clams I can catch for 7 days.
On June 30th when I return, we will be butchering the remainder of my chickens and having a big chicken and clam bake here at the house.