I knew Hank was back the moment my skater bug got just crushed, with a quick shake of his head though he was gone again.  “That’s alright though.”  I said to myself almost shaking with re-assurance as Hank’s predictability sunk in.  Robert Benkhe writes that a west slope cutthroat trout can spend it’s whole life in just one to two miles of stream only going upstream to spawn in the spring only to drop right back to the same spot each summer.  After crossing paths with Hank or Hank the Tank as he’s become known last year in the early summer I’ve started to learn his haunts.  Both initial contacts with Hank it happened down-stream of his summer long home in a small well aerated pocket, but clearly as the water in the main stem drops the same sort of O2 building drop occurs up-stream at the mouth of a small tributary and that’s where Hank spends his summers in the temp stable, well oxygenated, food rich spot he loves so much.

Six days later the river level had dropped and I could see the perfectly formed seem I was, barely deeper than Hank is tall if the spot wasn’t so perfect you would never see a fish so big in a pocket so small.

Hank the Tank 1st time

Even though I knew right where Hank would be I started at the bottom of the small pocket and worked my casts inside to out with instant success.  In just four casts I had landed three nice little 12-13 inch cutthroat but not the one I was looking for.  I couldn’t wait any longer; I moved my next cast up still staying about four feet down from where I thought Hank would be, not wanting to line the smart old fish.  I don’t know if he heard the splat of my grey Chernobyl ant or if he just saw a flash of movement down-stream to his left but without hesitation he turned and ran from just the spot I thought he’d and slammed the bug with one hardy gulp.

Hank up close

The fight was on, out across and down to the spot where he bashed his face on a shallow ledge just down-stream of the spot I was standing just the same plan as last year but this time I was ready.  I turned Hank back out into mid-stream where he proceeded to burn across river at least five nerve racking times.  Finally I was lucky enough to bring Hank to hand, the same great fish two years in a row.

Hank the Tank 2nd time

As a kid growing up on the Methow River I just used to know certain holes always had great cutthroat and now I’ve come to learn those same cutthroat I fish now are very likely progeny of the fish I had caught as a child or in the very least old friends like Hank the Tank.