The Great Trout of Lake Washington
A local captain battles a legendary trout—and finds a piece of his lost gear inside the fish's belly.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Among the Washington World's Fair fish specimens will be a three-pound trout taken from Lake Washington by Capt. A. R. Leake. The morning was dark and dreary when the captain anchored his boat near Union Bay. After hooking a large trout, the line broke and the fish escaped. Troubled by the loss, Leake returned to the same spot later that day and hooked a massive fish. After a ten-minute struggle, he brought the prize alongside and found a white string protruding from its mouth: the very leader he had lost hours before. When placed on the scales, it tipped them at three pounds.
“The captain looked at his leader, found that four feet of it had disappeared, and after pausing for a few moments on the uncertainties of life went to the house for breakfast.”
Lake Washington today is unrecognizable compared to the wild, rugged bay described by Captain Leake. This story captures the enduring local fascination with 'the one that got away' that continues to define Seattle's relationship with its lakes.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.