This is the story of my 18lb fish from last year. I guess it took me a year and a half to tell it right :)

http://www.calfishing.com/freshwater/18lber/index.htm

Jaw-droppin' tale Rob! Thank you for detailing it so well and for offering hope to some of us who havn't(I may be the only one?) hit the double-digit mark yet much less a "teener-TOAD".

Dan

Rob, it was for sure the same fish all three times. I took a photo with me and compared to Yoshihide Nakae's fish photo. The scale patterns were identical. She was hooked on the point just North of the resort where Chris and I weighed and released her. Definitely caught alive. Not a floater (I hate rumors!). She's hanging on a wall in Japan now though. I'm sort of ambivalent 'cause its pretty clear she had lost her mind and was biting anything that came by. She was a gonner sooner or later. One interesting thing is that when I caught her, her belly was quite empty and soft yet she weighed only 3 oz less than in May.??? Wish she had been full! One 2lb trout and she would have weighed 20.
BTW - another fish you've probably seen before! See attached photo.

Now that is too funny. That big spot was definitely eating everything in sight. Again goes to show, small lake, small numbers of overall fish, odds are good of many fish being caught multiple times.

Why that big fish was eating up everything in sight too, I don't know. Pretty cool 3 people got to catch her, just a shame she never made it to 20lbs.