I love these kind of threads...some great fish everyone. I hope you all top em in 2013!
My most memorable fish of 2012 wasn't my biggest, it actually didn't make my top 5 for heaviest fish this year. I have been after a 20+ lb mirror carp for 5-6 years now. I have hooked mirrors that big, but something always seemed to go wrong and I would lose the fish. This year it finally came together. I spotted this big girl cruising the outside of a bay from about 100 feet away. I was able to sneak into position and waited for her to get close. When she was about 35 feet away I put the fly in front and counted it down to the bottom. The big carp stopped, and slowly followed the fly down. As big as she was, I still lost sight of her due to the water depth, so I counted in my head, guessing at how long it would take her to get to the fly...then I set th hook. A few minutes later and my long standing goal of a 20 lb mirror was finally a reality. She tipped my digital scale at just over 24 lbs...
I caught bigger fish this year, saw much more impressive takes and had a lot more difficult and cool "stalks" but this fish was years in the making. To finally land a big mirror made my fishing year.
On to 2013!