John Kudlas of Barnes was fishing Wisconsin's Brule River earlier this month when a large brown trout came drifting his way, struggling on the surface. What's an angler to do? Kudlas grabbed the fish by the tail to check it out.
"I discovered it had a golf-ball-sized growth in its mouth at the isthmus between the gills and blocking the esophagus opening," Kudlas wrote in an e-mail. "Obviously, (it was) unable to forage for some time. I thought I could puncture the growth, but it was hard and sinewy, so I proceeded to revive the fish the best I could by moving it back and forth through the water by hand. It gained some strength and I released the beautiful fish to whims of nature."
Kudlas measured the fish before he released it. The fish was 34 inches long. He has caught brown trout up to about 15 or 17 inches.
"This was the biggest brown trout I have seen in all my years of fishing the Brule. I felt privileged to find the majestic fish," Kudlas wrote.
As luck would have it, a passing canoeist had a camera and snapped a quick photo of Kudlas with the trout before he released it.
