Snow Day on the Water

My friend and fishing buddy, Buddy H., decided to brave the cold and the snow to fish the Caney for the first time in almost two months. This was the only time we could find when the water was low and not generating. The river was very low. The temp. at the dam was 52 degrees. We started about 2:00 and fished until 2:45 with no luck but some great pictures. We left and went to Happy Hollow and I have never seen as much dry land as I did today; I have only been fishing there since the end of August 09. The cold front was coming through and the wind had picked up considerably along with the wind chill factor. The water temp. here was 43 degrees and very shallow. I broke off two of my self tied flies and then tied on a fly that will now be known as Pappy's Poison. My first and only cast was engulfed by a 17" Brown that for the first 4 minutes I thought I had hooked a stripe that had come up river during the high water. I finally got him netted with Buddy's help,took a bad picture and then let him go unhurt. This is by far the biggest trout I have caught in my short time of fly fishing. He was also fat, maybe 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 lbs. I wasn't able to get the fly out-it was all the way down to his gills. If anyone catches him, you can see the shank right inside his gill plate.