Mystery of big trout remains just that

By Dave McKee, For the Chronicle

Though fairly stubborn and slow in the process, it seems the past few years have found me working diligently to accept reality and face the world of computers. Technologically inept and stoic in my attachment to handwritten letters and hardbound books, the supposed ease and efficiency of electronic mail, Internet information and POS systems just didn't add up. Fishing, hunting, hammers, nails and drinking coffee seemed far more in touch.

Yet while I stood there with my giant mug, the world moved on and suddenly I was forced to realize that modern survival and acceptance depended on at least a small degree of computer literacy. Thus began the arduous process of pushing buttons, typing messages and conversing with tech support in the effort to figure out the details of my home computer network. In time, word processing made sense, the Internet seemed fine and email became part of the weekly routine.

Unfortunately, with the excitement of receiving 67 new messages came the sudden realization that most if not all of them were petty attempts to tarnish an otherwise pristine mind and train of thought. Occasionally, an actual acquaintance might send something along, yet fearful of viruses and unable to download much of anything, I quickly learned to delete most anything, entirely defeating the purpose of the whole endeavor.

Interestingly enough, when a message titled, "Giant Brown Trout Photo," finds its way to the inbox, most any angler is bound to close the door and pull up a chair. Just last week, in the midst of this exact scenario, technology presented a glimpse of angling greatness like none I could have imagined.

There on the screen, perched over a plastic sled was Butte resident Tim Johansen, hoisting a 31-pound, 11-ounce brown trout caught from the depths of Clark Canyon Reservoir.

As a lifetime angler, a trout fishing guide and one who has yet to lay his eyes on much more than a seemingly giant 6-pound fish, I felt humbled, insanely jealous and excited by the inexplicable mysteries of the sport. I couldn't wait to spread the news.

By the next morning word had traveled, anglers buzzed with the tale of the great fish and the sportsman who had landed the new record on 4-pound test line. This trout, some five times larger than most anyone could hope to catch in a lifetime, was big news indeed.

Interestingly enough, while fishermen are an excitable bunch they are also inherently suspicious of anything they haven't achieved themselves. Talk of foul play had already surfaced by that afternoon. Had the photos been digitally remastered? Could the information be accurate? Could it possibly be a hoax?

Of course a lack of detail in the rapidly circulating email left for unsolved mystery as well. How could the leviathan fit through a hole in the ice? And who was this Johansen character anyway? Was he after that fish intentionally, was he a master angler or had he just raised the beast in the privacy of his garage? For more than a week, hot debate lead nowhere.

In the midst of plans to find the brown trout that ate all of the perch in Canyon Ferry, presumably a specimen of some 80 pounds or more, the truth surfaced. Indeed the famous trout was real. The legendary Tim Johansen was real. Ironically, neither was from Montana. According to a Bismark, N.D. newspaper, the fish was caught below Lake Sakakawea in the Garrison Dam tailrace of the Missouri River with a minnow and 4-pound test line. Fooled or not, we're now left only to guess how the rest of the story might have unfolded.

Perhaps it's better that way, better not to know the details. Perhaps it was sheer skill and a lifetime of hot pursuit that brought the giant fish to hand, maybe it was blind luck and little more. We'll all have our thoughts, all devise a workable story and all know that there's always a bigger one just waiting somewhere else.

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