Report: Janury 6, 2012
You may have taken the Farmers' Almanac and put it in the outhouse for whatever purpose. It's taken some serious shots over the past month, being that it feels like March and all. Worst winter in a decade. I suppose I'll knock on some wood and leave it at that. This is strange man. Very strange. I can't remember a winter like this.
It was criminal to be indoors yesterday. To keep things right then, I left work a little early and met my neighbor at a local water. Fished until about 415 PM. This was the outing as it was meant to be: many fish in places you'd expect to find them; brook trout included; some moderately large brown trout. There were two bouts of 6-7 fish each, with misc sprinkled in there. So may have approached 20 fish which is a high count for January. Most fish ate an orange scud.
The best sequence of the day did not result in a fish to hand: working a hole and knowing fish are there; no takes though; so move indicator up; still no takes; so take the two #4 Dinsmore shot and separate them - put one between the two beadheads; first drift, beautiful brown hooked and subsequently lost. Still though, it's another check-mark on the lesson board of nymphing: the fish are in the holes. The job is to apply shot and indicator movement in iterative fashion until the fly gets in front of the fish. This is, if you want to dredge the bottom for the trout lying down there in those bellies. If you don't want to do that, don't do it. Someone famous said "the trout can have the refuge of the deep water." Today though we took that from them: fishing the soft edges and mending to let the nymphs sink... twitching the nymphs now and then... catching good trout. It's a pleasure to nymph with moderate success.
There were midges in the air; between the two of us though we observed only one rise. Paid no attention to dry fly possibilities. Didn't even fish that much for the second half of the allotted time. Drank a pint of good beer and talked about where we might go next.
Now on to tune up the ice fishing gear in prep for an outing with boys tomorrow.
Fish pictured here measured at approx 14".
You may have taken the Farmers' Almanac and put it in the outhouse for whatever purpose. It's taken some serious shots over the past month, being that it feels like March and all. Worst winter in a decade. I suppose I'll knock on some wood and leave it at that. This is strange man. Very strange. I can't remember a winter like this.
It was criminal to be indoors yesterday. To keep things right then, I left work a little early and met my neighbor at a local water. Fished until about 415 PM. This was the outing as it was meant to be: many fish in places you'd expect to find them; brook trout included; some moderately large brown trout. There were two bouts of 6-7 fish each, with misc sprinkled in there. So may have approached 20 fish which is a high count for January. Most fish ate an orange scud.
The best sequence of the day did not result in a fish to hand: working a hole and knowing fish are there; no takes though; so move indicator up; still no takes; so take the two #4 Dinsmore shot and separate them - put one between the two beadheads; first drift, beautiful brown hooked and subsequently lost. Still though, it's another check-mark on the lesson board of nymphing: the fish are in the holes. The job is to apply shot and indicator movement in iterative fashion until the fly gets in front of the fish. This is, if you want to dredge the bottom for the trout lying down there in those bellies. If you don't want to do that, don't do it. Someone famous said "the trout can have the refuge of the deep water." Today though we took that from them: fishing the soft edges and mending to let the nymphs sink... twitching the nymphs now and then... catching good trout. It's a pleasure to nymph with moderate success.
There were midges in the air; between the two of us though we observed only one rise. Paid no attention to dry fly possibilities. Didn't even fish that much for the second half of the allotted time. Drank a pint of good beer and talked about where we might go next.
Now on to tune up the ice fishing gear in prep for an outing with boys tomorrow.
Fish pictured here measured at approx 14".
posted by Wendy Berrell at 8:28 PM
7 Comments:
Nice. I miss those streams.
It's been a while for you. Maybe we work it in at some point.
couple years from now us midwesterners will be scooping piles of snow saying "remember that winter of 2011/12"... the fishing rocked.
Nice photos Wendy!
Good job getting out in the crummy weather Wendy. Cool photos!
Nicely done. Also, I'm deeply moved by the thought of a 16 oz. IPA in a can and will be looking into it.
My favourite can of fishing, small wild streams with little wild brownies
Yah, who would believe that was January fishing in MN? And now today, it probably feels like a dream....
All best to you & yours in 2012, Wendy~ Brett
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