Sunday, March 28, 2010

A Pause for Trout

This weekend has been busy with infant CPR and first aid class yesterday, and a whole lot of bathroom construction (drywall is all up, ready for tape and mud.) But this morning I decided I'd give myself a little break and chase trout for a few hours.

About an hour south is a small creek that the local chapter of Trout Unlimited has adopted and turned into nice trout habitat. They stock the creek twice a year, spring and fall, and the fish population seems to do OK. This was my destination for the day.

The weather turned from yesterday's pleasant, sunny, cool weather to downright cold and a steady rain. It was 42 degrees when I parked the car to suit up, with an even, cold rain falling. The creek water was fine- it hadn't been raining long enough or hard enough to wash it out.

I fished for about an hour with little luck- didn't even see many fish. At my upstream limit, I turned around to head back downstream and changed flies from my favorite wet Royal Coachman to a black Wooly Bugger with a cone head. This wet, heavy fly would get down deep in the water to where the fish were likely holding. I let the fly swing downstream and gave it some action and in the first deep pool I felt a bump. The water erupted as a big, 16 inch rainbow trout leapt, trying to throw the hook. I let him take line, then as he tired, reeled him in.

I followed the same routine for about 45 minutes, and ended up landing 4 trout, all of them large, healthy rainbows. It was hard to get pictures since I was fishing alone, but this one came out OK. The third white mark on the fly rod is 18 inches from the end of the rod!

2 comments:

Jane said...

Pretty fish! Did you eat him?

wclaspy said...

I only eat trout when I fish the U.P. where pan size brook trout are so thick in the water you can walk across 'em.

The trout I caught on Sunday were too big to fit in the pan anyhow :-)