A Mother of a Trout
"Rip" Collins's record brown
By Gregg PattersonIt was a late Saturday night when I answered the phone.
"Gregg, I caught a big trout today. You have to get up here. I think it's a line-class world record."
It was my friend Howard "Rip" Collins calling. It was also Mother's Day weekend 1992.
I remember telling him it was Mother's Day the next day, and I'd have to spend it with my wife and our 6-month-old son. (What?!? You have to be kidding me. You can tell I was newly married and stupid.)
The old military man was kind to tolerate my indiscretion.
"Is it still alive?" I asked.
"Yeah, I got it tethered to the dock down on the river at my son's place. I don't want to kill it."
"Get some hardware cloth," I said. "Build a cage big enough so it can rest quietly in the river. I'll get up to your place after church tomorrow."
I was on my way to Heber Springs, Ark. and the Little Red River later the next day. It was a little more than an hour drive from Little Rock. Rip greeted me warmly at the door of his house and quickly sat me down in a recliner in his living room.
"I've got a VHS tape of the fish," he said.
One look at the tape and I was convinced.
"That's no line-class record fish, Rip," I said. "That's the overall world record brown trout, no doubt. It's a monster."
I knew this because every working day I passed a replica of "Huey" Manley's 38-lb., 9-oz. brown that was then the reigning all-tackle world record. Rip's fish was bigger.
"Let's go down to the river and see it," I said.
The view up close verified my belief after watching the videotape. This fish was deep-bodied, had heavy "shoulders" like a football lineman and had length to go with it. It seemed to be doing well in the 3- by 6-foot cage Rip had built for it.
The next morning we planned to get it officially weighed. Rip had the details all worked out.
The guys from Greers Ferry National Fish Hatchery would pick up the fish and place it in their trout hauling truck, replete with super-chilled water. We would go to the new post office where they had an officially certified digital scale.
We all settled down for a nervous night. The phone rang constantly, and visitors came and went.
The morning of the big day finally arrived. More than two full days after catching the fish, it was finally going to be weighed.
The first problem was getting the fish to the hatchery truck. We had to get it out of the cage without losing it, then up out of the water and up a steep embankment to the truck some 100 yards away.
After voicing numerous ideas, we settled on a soaked bed sheet with the monster brown cocooned inside. Two hatchery technicians on either end muscled it up to and into the truck. Then it was off to the post office.
We had to forgo the bed sheet because of the excess water and weight it would bring, so the fish went right in as is.
There were eight people in line that morning. I wished I could have magically captured the looks on their faces as a team of wet, fishy smelling pushed their way in with a fish that literally made you audibly gasp when you saw it.
No one complained as we rushed the scale.
On it went, and after a few half-hearted flips of its mammoth tail, the big trout lay still.
Everyone in the post office was quiet and still, too.
40 lbs., 4 ozs. glowed the scale's digital read-out.
"A new world record!" I shouted.
Everyone was talking at once. Rip shouted above the din to "get the fish back to the truck." We all scrambled quickly out.
It all took about 30 minutes total. The big trout was probably out of the water no more than five of those minutes. Back at the river, I did a 20-minte photo session of Rip and his fish. He was very careful to keep the brute submerged between shots.
I burned three roles of slide film, and we slipped the fish back into its customized cage. It rolled on its side.
Rip was beside himself. Our efforts to hold its tail and gently move the monster back and forth did no good. The hatchery guys didn't know what else to do. Rip refuse to give up.
A call went to a local veterinarian, and a shot of steroids and one of Vitamin B had the record brown perky in no time.
We all felt better. Rip really wanted to let this fish go back into the river.
But it wasn't to be.
Some 30-40 minutes later, the affects of the shots wore off, and the big fish rolled to its side again.
The end came quickly.
And Rip Collins cried.
Rip died a few years later. Way too early, as if anyone's death is well timed. He was buried with his boots on — or Orvis waders to be exact.
I don't think the death of that fish ever left Rip the same.
No doubt, he was a conservationist before he caught that fish, but he became an impassioned river-keeper of renown after that fish. He was the spark and power of the Friends of the Little Red.
The events of life certainly shape who we become — for better or worse.
I think it was the death of the Mother's Day monster, not the catching of it, that shaped the last few years of Rip's life. And those of us who still fish that river, especially the youngsters who fish Collins Creek — a handicapped and youth-only fishing creek that empties into the Little Red — are better off for it.
