BIGGEST BROWN IN 30 YEARS BETTER IN HIS MEMORY

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, January 19, 1993                   TAG: 9301190026
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: B5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BILL COCHRAN
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
BIGGEST BROWN IN 30 YEARS BETTER IN HIS MEMORY
Wayne Hayes had dreamed about catching a trophy-size brown trout.
In his mind, he already had savored its pull on his line, he had felt its weight and coldness in his hands, he had marveled at the black-and-red dots that peppered its bronze sides.
He knew a couple of things for certain - or at least he thought he did. He would catch it during the winter and he would release it alive back to the stream.
If there were an All-Madden Team for anglers, Hayes probably would make it. He goes fishing in the foulest of weather.
"Rain and other inclement weather conditions often trigger feeding binges," he said.
That is why January is one of his favorite months. It also is why he fishes alone most of the time.
"Friends are hard to find when the football games are on, and the snow blankets the ground," he said.
A fastidious note keeper, Hayes uses a diary to record his outings: fish caught, lures or flies that worked, time of day, weather conditions. He had 1,138 catches in his catalog last year.
There are personal notes, too, philosophical things:
"How unimportant a fish on the stringer is and how great the value of a live fish in the stream. A fish caught and released is the most enjoyable and rewarding kind of fish that anyone can catch."
Hayes usually carries a camera, pausing to snap a particular scene that delights him, and using it to record his better catches before they leave his hand to wiggle back to their lair.
On the Smith River the other day, however, the weather was so nasty he didn't take his camera. A steady drizzle came out of a putty-colored sky, and it was so cold Hayes had a hard time feeling the fishing rod with his numb fingers.
That made it a Hayes kind of day. He was on the Henry County stream for nine hours, casting flies and spinners to the pools and riffles, averaging a little more than two rises per hour.
At 4 p.m., he tossed a silver Mepps spinner to an undercut bank and saw a fish with considerable heft roll at it. On the next cast, the fish smashed the wobbling, flashing lure. Hayes had hooked up with his dream.
It was a long, lean brown trout, a muscular male with a lower jaw that curved upward and double, zigzagging rows of vomerine teeth.
"Perfectly shaped and in excellent conditions for living in fast, strong current," Hayes wrote in his diary.
Ten minutes after the strike, Hayes had the 21-inch fish in his grasp. That's when the battle really began.
There was the sudden and overpowering urge to keep the fish, to carry it home for picture purposes, to have something more tangible than just a memory. After all, this was the biggest brown he had caught in 30 years of angling.
He reached for the stringer, tucked into a dark corner of his tackle, and eased one of its sharp hooks into the trout's jaw, where it would do no damage. Then he lowered the fish into the water and watched it face the current, as if handcuffed there.
Hayes didn't like what he saw or what he felt. He bent down and unhooked the stringer. The fish slowly swam away.
"I just felt there weren't enough fish left like that," Hayes said. "If you want a place like the Smith to continue be good, you have to release the fish. I'll always have the memory. That, alone, will be enough."

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB