John McCloskey of River Through Atlanta landed this monster on Georgia’s Chatthoochee River on Wednesday.
Photo by John McCloskey
When you think of fly-fishing in Georgia, you might think of wild mountain brook trout, freshwater stripers, or even some of the big rainbows and browns from one of a few pay-to-play streams. But when I opened the email that contained the photo above, I was astonished that such a beast was swimming free in a river just outside a major metropolitan area in the Peach State, of all places.
John McCloskey‘s fish taped out at 35 inches, and the girth-and-length calculation suggest that the brown weighed between 22 and 24 pounds! That would have been a state record, but we’ll never know: McCloskey quickly landed, measured, and released the fish, which swam off in great shape. You gotta love a guy who practices catch-and-release in that situation.
couldn’t happen to a more deserving man ,its been along time john jack ward
Nice fish! What kind of fly did it take?
Oh man. I can’t believe he didn’t keep it! Would have looked good on his wall.