PRESENTS

A FISH'S TAIL

A TRUE STORY BY

JED HOLLAN

Back in May of 1992, Mr. Howard "Rip" Collins received a phone call. It seems that his son, Michael, was coming from Memphis to spend a few days and wanted to fish. Well, Rip hadn't been in his boat lately and figured it might need some attention to make sure everything worked. So, he got in his John boat and checked the trolling motor battery and it seemed to be okay. He gave the outboard engine a few tugs on the starting rope and it sprang to life. He pulled out into the lazy current of the Little Red River and noticed Van, his neighbor, sitting out on his own dock. Van suggested that Rip was wasting his time on the river because he knew for a fact that the fish weren't biting that day,

Rip told Van what he was doing and asked Van to grab a fishing pole and join him. The two were going upstream near a beaver hut about two hundred yards from Rip's house when they decided to see if, indeed, the fish were biting or not. Well, right off the bat, Van hooked and Rip landed for him an ordinary 14 inch german brown trout. Soon, three other trout were landed by Van but Rip had yet to get a bite. So Rip decided to change his tactics. He remembered a seminar he had attended the previous year hosted by Mr. Lefty Kreh, a premier angler, instructor, photographer and lecturer. Lefty talked about the way that really big fish think. Lefty told the audience that big fish will see a high visibility, contrasting bait or fly in the water and will say to himself, "I know that's not food 'cause if it was food I'd have eaten it a long time ago". But, if the angler ties on a lure that looks a lot like the bottom of the river, the big fish thinks, "Well, I must have missed eating you before 'cause I didn't notice you, but this time I'm gonna eat you up!", and he'll take it. So Rip tied on a 1/32 ounce olive green marabou jig to his 4 1/2 foot ultra-lite spinning outfit and threw the jig into the river over some old logs. Well, guess what happened! This tail came out of the water that looked like Shamu the Killer Whale! Rip's line went taut, Rip's jaw went slack then Rip heisted back with all of his strength and set the hook. Well, as Rip later stated, "All hell broke loose!" The fish went upstream, the boat with Rip and Van went upstream and the only thing holding them all together was 4 pound test monofilament fishing line. They had been fighting the fish for a while when Rip noticed they had no landing net in the boat. Rip yelled, "Van, what are we going to do now?" Well, just at that time they heard an outboard motor upstream and when they turned to look there was a fisherman in his boat coming right at them, fortunately, on the opposite side of the boat from the fish. Rip yelled at the passing fisherman to see if he had, by chance, a landing net with him he could lend for a few minutes. The stranger produced a small standard 8 inch trout net and Van yelled, "Don't you have anything bigger?" Well, the fishing Gods were sure smiling that day, because the stranger produced a larger landing net with a long handle, exactly what was needed for the hazardous job that was coming. Eventually, Rip and Van got that big old fish over the boat's gunwale and took it back to Rip's house where he had a large fish cage in the water tied to his boat dock. The only place nearby that could officially weigh such a monster of a fish was the local post office wih their certified scales. Since the following day was Mother's Day they had to wait. The following Tuesday, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service sent their tanker truck to retrieve the fish for the trip to the local Post Office. Where else, but in a fishing town like Heber Springs, would the postmaster permit a heavy, forty inch long, slimey trout to be weighed on his scales? Well sir, when they hoisted that big fish up onto those scales and read the weight, you could have heard a pin drop. For a second, no one could believe their eyes. Forty pounds, four ounces! No man had ever landed a brown trout that weighed forty pounds in recorded history!

Well, the word soon got out that the new world record brown trout now belonged to the Little Red River. People came from far and wide to see the great fish. Rip held the fish, always carefully and in the water, for various photo sessions. Everybody wanted a picture of the biggest trout anyone had ever see around these parts. Photo after photo soon took it's toll on the big mama brown. The stress from all the handling was just more than she could stand and she died a few days after she was caught. A sad day for all.

Rip had planned to put the fish, named Nancy after his wife, in an aquarium somewhere or even release her back into the river, but Mother Nature had other plans.

The original replica of this great brown trout now resides inside the Little Red Fly Shop on the banks of the Little Red River near where the fish was caught. A sad day has left wonderful memories.

LITTLE RED FLY SHOP 35 Swinging Bridge Drive Post Office Box 717 Heber Springs, AR 72543 Phone toll free #1-888-442-4022 Phone #1-501-887-9988 Web Site: www.littleredflyshop.com