A fond early memory of mine is fishing in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan with my father, and hooking a rainbow trout. Just as I pulled it to shore, it spit the hook, and my father jumped into the water and flung it out. It was 20.5". I think I was 5 years old. In the Lake, we call them steelhead, but in the creeks, they are rainbows. They live among the brook trout (brookies), and you know when you hook them. They were a mystical fish to me as a child.
That was awesome. I remember being bummed that I never landed him first. Do you remember that he hit on my line about a minute before you hooked and landed him? He pulled and rolled on the surface. I was so stunned, that I never set the hook properly and that was that. You and Dad and I immediately started talking about how crazy it was for such a large rainbow to be hiding in that little hole in the creek. As we spoke, your line was in the water, the fish wasn't done looking for his meal, and our conversation was interrupted by the best fish battle you'd ever had. Also, there's the picture we had of us holding up the fish together. Before filleting the trout, Dad took a picture of us and the fish. We had a foot and a half stick hanging him through his gills, and you and I holding up either side of the stick, with the fish in the middle. Good times bro. BTW. That could be an excellent subject for your next painting.
One of two good fishing memories I have is of rainbow trout biting every five minutes in a brackish Texas bay.