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Making a Trophy Trout Wall - A Tribute to Ed "Pops" Hahn

TTH INTRO:

Hello to all and welcome to Trophy Trout Hunter. I'm Brian Wildish, and I am an avid Trophy Trout fisherman. I have enjoyed contributing to this site since I caught the trophy trout bug in 2005. The site was started by trophy trout veteran Jimmy Lewis back in 2004. Dan McAllister then took over the helm for Jimmy in the fall of 2006. I began sharing responsiblities with Dan back in 2008 and it has been my privilege to oversee the TTH website with him since then.

It has been great to see other guys get involved by contributing their reports and pictures of big trout, and through this it has grown from one man's fishing journal to an active community resource for up to date trophy trout fishing information in Central Oregon.

We here in Oregon have been blessed with wonderful world class opportunities for catching giant trout. If one dedicates themselves to spending time on the water and following some simple guidelines, a trout over 5 pounds is very attainable in many waters.

I grew up fishing warm water ponds for bass, crappie, and blue gill in the Willamette Valley of Oregon with my dad. I also learned how to fly-fish several streams in the high-cascades targeting rainbows, cutthroats, and brook trout. We spent a lot of time on the water, but the tactics we employed were more geared towards catching numbers of small trout.

One day, when I was learning how to wet-fly fish with a stone-fly nymp and I caught an 18 inch rainbow. This was my largest trout ever by 5". My next cast, I saw a slight bend in the rod, I set the hook, and I saw the largest boil at the end of my line that I'd ever seen. Within two seconds, the beast was gone. At the time I thought it was a salmon, but looking back, it was probably a 5 to 6 lb brown trout. I said to myself "I WANT TO CATCH ONE OF THOSE!"

Fast forward a few years, I was asked by Ryan Daniels (aka RD, aka The Coyote) to pursue some trophy trout at Crescent Lake in 2005. In the first hour, I landed a 5 lb German Brown. Later that weekend, I landed a 30 inch, 9 lb hookjaw brown. I was hooked.

Through "the school of hard knocks" I now realize that there is plenty of action to be had while targeting the big fish, and it is amazing how many small fish will get caught while applying tactics that up the chances of hooking and landing something huge. My current goal for any weekend trip is one trout over five pounds, and that goal is achieved more times than not. In fact, it is not uncomon to land several fish of that size or larger in a weekend these days.

I and most of the Trophy Trout Hunter contributors release nearly all of the fish that we catch. I encourge all to consider doing the same to promote strong trophy trout populations for the future.

Take a look around the site and if you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to E-mail me

Tight Lines,

Brian (aka Bwild)