News- Leader.com Reported: To Mark Clemishire’s eye, the fish looked like “a submarine coming up out of the water,” pushing a bow wave and trailing a big, deep wake through the edge of Lake Taneycomo. “I’ve never hooked a rainbow that big down there at Taneycomo,” Clemishire recalled. “It was just a submarine of a fish. I was running after him through the water, stumbling over rocks trying to keep him close. I started screaming ‘big fish! big fish!’ to the other guys fishing, hoping they’d move when we came through. We tried to get in front of him to spook him upstream away from deeper water and that worked.”
After a 20-minute fight, the Skiatook, Okla., fly fisherman worked the rainbow he now calls “Troutzilla” into fishing guide Brett Rader’s net and both men were astonished at its size.
Thirty-one inches long, with a girth they estimated at 23 inches and a wide-muscled back some 3 inches thick, it was a fish of a lifetime.
“We knew it was huge, but at the time we didn’t know it was a possible Missouri state record,” Clemishire said.
Yet after a few quick photos, and without a second thought, Clemishire let the massive rainbow go.
“He was still full of piss and vinegar, he was in such great shape after we caught him,” Clemishire said. “After we netted him he was still trying to get away. He was still good and alive, and when we released him he just took off. I was so out of breath — it was just unbelievable.” Read on…..
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