One More Fish Story...

When I was a kid I heard a story from my dad that he had once caught a trout that weighed 6 pounds, and I believe it was from June Lakes up in the Sierras. I fished through my youth and never caught a trout over a pound, but David caught some in Utah that I remember going around 2 pounds. But nevertheless 6 pounds was a number that subconsciously had stuck with me as the minimum size to be a real fisherman like my dad.
When we came to New Zealand in the 70s I caught some 3 and 4 pounders but never the elusive 6 pounder. Finally one day on the Williamson, north of Klamath I finally caught the 6 pounder and joined Dad's mythical fraternity of real fisherman.
I had never realized that Tyler had somehow absorbed this fantasy in his fishing youth and here in New Zealand his goal was a 6 pound trophy like his Father and Grandfather (and Great Grandfather Hilton too), had managed.
He has caught a LOT of trout here but mostly around 3 pounds. I think he has a couple of 4+ fish but his dream was that magical 6 pound number. (For some odd reason that I will never understand, the legendary 24 pound brown he caught in Tierra del Fuego, he says doesn't count as it was a sea run fish).
In October we hired a guide and amazingly I caught a 6 pound brown on my first cast but alas, he was skunked. And I should add that at the time I didn't realize he was carrying this 6 pound monkey on his back.
WELL...This week we were back south and he went off to fish the Oreti river where I had caught that fish in October. BINGO! His first day out he caught an 8 pound brown but his camera was wacked and he got no photo and was crushed!
Next day he returned to a new area on that river where it was a 2 hour hike to just begin fishing. That night when he returned to the motel in Lumsden his smile was as wide as the 6 pound fish he had landed, as wide as the 7.5 pound fish he landed and as wide as the probable 10 pounder that got away.
RELIEF. He only has a couple of fishing days left, so this was the Holy Grail he had been seeking. Last night he explained to me that he had been carrying this Van Fleet 6 pound curse for a while, a surprise to me. Last night he slept very soundly.