Three Generations Outing

New favorite photo.  Everything that is SE MN.  Nine year old kid at the center hooked up.

Rainjackets.  Boring Christmas presents but thus far, the most used.  Can't say enough about good outerwear for kids.  Adults don't always need comfort on the water but for the kids it can help keep the focus on fishing.  It was cool and rained much of this afternoon; there were zero complaints.

He took half a dozen out of this hole.  Probably landed 8-9 on the day including his first ever BKT on the fly.  We took some fish pictures but they are nearly all on his camera.  The kids got two each to hand.  Older kid got his first ever RBT on the fly; he is up to 29 total fly caught trout in 2016 which is pretty good for a young dude.  

Suppose I made maybe 12-18 casts on the day.  At a few holes after the guys had worked them.  Trying some of the tougher drifts.  I estimated this fish using handspans and rod markings at 13.5 inches but he was actually 15.  Standard.  Nearly without exception my field estimates are under the actual.

We took home six fish and all four guys contributed at least one to that creel.  A special harvest.

Last trout we'll see for a while.  Moving on to bigger fish in the short-term.

Couple Trout Chapters

As noted previously the deal is to carp fish on opening weekend of catch and keep.  And then head out during the week.  Bluebells; green and blue pushing up from the floodplain bench; water low and clear.  Rock faces.  Trout made of circles spots yellow and blue; tangerine colors.  The benthos rising too.  April is a special month and if I had my way this is how I would chart it out: take the months of April and May off work; June go to half time; July and August, the hot worthless months go to 2x FTE; September through November go back to half time; December and January 1.5x.  March 1x FTE.  Something like that anyway.  If you understand what's out there it feels wrong to not be there.  Maybe that's what folks mean when the say something is calling.

On this day had about six hours total; drove a little further than I normally do maybe 50 minutes.  Water was in great shape; fish rising.  Right about where my feet are positioned here I logged this video of a brook lamprey.  

Got one to eat a caddis dry and then I put it away.  I watched the rising fish.  Nearly all small brown trout.  I had it in my head to nymph steady so I went with it.  Fished a triple nymph rig with this barely passable caddis pupae the trailer-most.  It got eaten quite often.  Root beer bead.

Some nice fish on light gear.  The legacy 2 wt rod.

Took a few photos of this fish as I was tuned into those spots.

Be honest caught a lot of fish of which I kept my first share of 2016.  Felt right to walk out early so I did it.  Nice and slow.  No folks around.

Day II:

That wasn't the case on second day; sometime in early May.  Been itching to get The Kid out to keep some trout.  He was pumped too.  I was bordering on uncontrollably happy when we parked at 730 AM in the rain and found no one in the lot.  A Sunday.  Risky as hell.  But I thought we had it licked.  Started upstream and he hooked two nice fish and lost them both near his feet.  Tough go.  Good fish.  Would have kept both.  An emotional dude so I take great care to encourage and state the way to do it is think of the day as a whole; each fish lost and landed a part of it.  Focus on the next one, etc.  Million trout; it's okay to lose a few.  Happens.  Thirty minutes in, around a bend and we met a guy walking downstream toward us.  He didn't look happy.  Hello we offered.  He wasn't rude but he was grumpy and he explained as much: I keep running into people he said.  Oh man. So more folks about.  And we two of them, yes.  We pushed on and fished two holes that should have produced trout but showed none.  Fishing behind people.  So I let him decide.  Look for new water he said.  So walk out; drive out downstream.  But now cars at every corner.  Every pulloff.  We screwed.  Approaching mental breakdown as an adult; can't take it; people all around.  So we left out for C&R water where we knew there'd be few people.

Here he studies his place in the world.

Common water right by the house.  Most know it.  Rebuilt by man.  Good lesson on this day.  First off, he wanted to leave.  I suggested we fish this last piece.  We had worked through maybe four holes and he had gone only 0/1.  So wearing a little thin.  Ready to hang it up.  Persistence is a quality though.  I put a couple drifts together and got a fish; his attention was thus refocused.  Flip drift flip drift high stick etc.  No fish.  I took rod and instead of drifting four inches from the bank, put the whole damn rig underneath it.  All out of sight including indicator.  Came tight on nice fish.  He watched; took rod; did same; got three to hand including this one.  No creel but some fish to round out a tough day anyway; he was lauded for his efforts.

Trout Catch and Keep 2016

A sot when it comes to a creel of trout but not archsot enough to wade into the mire of human egg carton crowding on the water for the harvest opener.  What I like to do instead is go carping.  This was the first carp of the year; smallish fish but a little belly geometry there and she even got her dorsal up for the camera on timer.  Ate a plain strip of green bunny fur with DB eyes.

The water was turbid such that the fly had to be in many cases levitated in front of the fish for a while so it could be detected.  The normal heavier flies e.g LOD were sinking out of sight too quickly.  Switched to an egg fly.  Rarely use it.  On this day it was money.  Ended up catching 6/7 carp that came to hand.  Seven carp over two hours in MN is a pretty good clip.  No big ones.  No dramatic fights.  Still felt good to catch some bigger fish though; big relative to trout.  Didn't scale any of them.  I think I was getting one class of fish around 5-6 lbs and another around 8-9 lbs.  Couple fish were in clearer water; deeper; it was highly enjoyable to sink this damn egg on them (very high vis fly) and count it down, watch for tells and set the hook.  Jedi carping at its best.  No strike; can't see fly; watch fish and discern.