Written by: Wayne Thurber, Dos Amigos Anglers
This rainbow enjoys a dangerous diet. Can you believe it still ate a damselfly?
Photo by Wayne Thurber
On a recent fly-fishing trip, our client Doug caught this interesting rainbow. When I netted the fish, he reached into the mouth of the trout to remove the blue damselfly pattern. The first attempt was not successful. On the second attempt, I was about to remove the fly when a snake decided he was going to escape the trout’s stomach. The snake managed to wiggle out of the trout about 6 inches, giving me a bit of a scare. The trout was released safely back into the wild, but the snake wasn’t so lucky. The trout swallowed him again as he headed back into the deep water.
Wayne Thurber owns and operates Dos Amigos Anglers in Taos and Eagle Nest, New Mexico.
Great, that’s fishing ruined for me…
I’ve not caught fish with anything so exotic in their mouths. I’ve retrieved a fly or two from a trout that I had lost the day before but what is most interesting, and it has happened more than once, is catching a relatively small trout – in the 6 / 7 inch range that regurgitates a minnow or a sculpin or even a trout only a couple inches smaller than it.
Nobody thinking about snake flies
That rainbow must be half Bass. I’ve seen that with large mouth, but never a trout..
Hey Wayne –
Let’s be careful out there!