Dan, I really appreciate your story.

I certainly have been blessed with some incredible days of fishing, in both quantity and quality, but it seems to me now that the best days I had were the ones I let the fish get away too.

Sadly, what could have been one of my better fishing days turned out to my most bittersweet instead.

Presidents Day many years ago, Bill Herzog took a couple of friends and me along to leap-frog down a long remote stretch of river that I had no idea could be floated. We had an awesome day of fishing in absolutely pristine surroundings with no one else around. Along the way I landed a beautiful 20# wild steelhead hen. The biggest hen and most perfect fish I have ever seen. Although I had seen many big trophy bucks, including a 30# Quinault (mounted), none were more beautiful to me than this immaculate and immense hen. Even though CNR was not that widely practiced back then, Bill, God bless his spoons, was actively encouraging wild release among his peers. And certainly by that time I had joined the cause myself. But in that moment of weakness, I selfishly decided that this would be the one and only trophy wild steelhead that I had previously said I would allow myself to have mounted. Ironically, my wife loves the mount and prominently displays it for all to see, but even now I can hardly look at it without having mixed emotions.

Suffice it to say, it’s better if you don’t have to kill such a beautiful creature to know the joy of letting the others go.