Little Water, Big Fish

I live in Cheyenne, Wyoming and couldn't be any farther southeast in the state. The closest good fishing is about 25 miles west at a place called Curt Gowdy State Park. There are two lakes, Granite and Crystal, which are famous for producing lots of stocker trout and every now and then a good lunker. There is a creek that connects the two lakes but is often overlooked by anglers because of the tight space and shallow water. However I had fished there earlier in the summer with a fly fishing class and enjoyed the solitude. So in October 2011 I went to the creek with a friend of mine to try out some late season fly fishing. We hand caught a handfull of stockers and one or two 15 inchers. The creek was mainly very shallow aside from one or two pools farther down. So sight fishing was the easiest way to do things. I had made my way farther down from my friend when I noticed a fish swim down stream. The fish looked to be about 17 inches, so I watched until the fish went into a area of rocks about three inches deep in water and I moved my way up. I had a few cast attempts that failed and finally I got my Bead Head Wolly Bugger where I wanted it, just behind the trout. I readied my self and bounced the bugger on the rocks until it went past the head of the trout and almost instantly the line went tight. I set the hook and was able to land the fish fairly easy due to the shallow water. This made me believe the fish was shorter than what I first thought. It wasn't until I put my net under the trout and lifted did I realize the length of the fish due to the fact that my net wasn't big enough! The fish fell out of the net where I scooped it up by the belly. My friend had just gotten there and we measured it to be a 23 1/2" female Brown Trout. "Don't let anyone tell you that you have to fish deep water to find big fish ever again," I said to my friend.