While my home waters are in the North Georgia Mountains I have been fortunately able to fish much of the fabulous places where trout swim in the country.  One of my favorite little streams is one that you can at places almost step from one bank of the stream to the other side without difficulty.  But don't let that make you think that there are no big fish! I've learned that many small streams can hold monsters.  Deeply cut banks give these elusive huge fish places to hide from predators and allow them to hide from prey. Below is a 19+ inch cutthroat trout caught on one such stream in Colorado.  The stream manager who has maintained these pristine waters for over thirty years said that while he knew there were big fish in the waters he'd never seen a cut there nor heard of anyone catching one. Well the proof is in the picture! Since several people who are cutthroat purists have pursued and caught much larger specimens.

Big Fish in public waters

A lot of people think that you cannot catch a large trout in public places.  The idea is that they are all fished out because the local public keeps a lot of them.  True many people keep a lions share of the fish that the DNR stocks.  I would estimate probably between 80-90 percent are removed and end up in the frying pan.  But the fish that remain often grow to sizeable specimens.  I recently hooked up with one of those monsters.  And actually though I have access to some pretty special places that are private my largest fish are still all caught in public places that the general public not only fish in but some of them are so frequented that most would say there are not possibly any fish in that area.  I have several of those places marked in my mind, places that I have named “the horseshoe”, “the drop”, “three seams”.  All places that I have either caught 20+ inch fish and in several of them have seen trout in the 30+ inch range.