spinner1

Many trout anglers are injured or lose their lives yearly. A little caution goes a long way.
I am not saying wear a PFD (personal Flotation Device) when you are stream fishing.
I am saying just use some common sense. It will will go a long way to keeping you safe
while you are out there.

One of the most common problems while trout fishing is stepping off in to deep water
while you are wading. Your waders fill up with water and you are like dead weight and
sink to the bottom. I don't need to tell you what happens next. Almost all waders come with
belts nowadays. They may get tight on you and uncomfortable but the alternative is worse
in my book. Myself I wear a back brace type wading belt that I bought at Cabelas. I believe
it costed 29 dollars.

One of my favorite streams changes every winter. The spring floods carve out the bottom from
one year to the next. A place where you waded across the fall before might be 8 feet deep this
year and one failed step in early season with ultra cold water and no wading belt could cause you
to take a "dirt nap."


There are some people that just don't wade. The deep water scares them. That wading belt has
another quality that saved me just yesterday. I was fishing some new water and saw these nice
looking Marsh Marigolds about 20 yards off the bank. They were surrounded by little trickles.
Looked like seepage from the bank. There was grass growing anew and it looked like solid ground.
There was a big bank that looked damp directly behind them and I could see a gravel road at the top
of the bank.. I walked right up on the flowers and the next thing you know i sank to my waist in mud immediately.
The ground seems like more water than mud BUT very cold mud..There must have been a huge spring on that
big bank that welled up and seeped out through the ground. I grabbed a limb that was on the ground close to me
or i would have been sucked up by the ground.


It was scary. Took me 20 minutes to get out of the mud. I had to pull my legs out one at a time.It
took me pulling with both my arms to dislodge my legs. My wading belt gave me enough buoyancy that I did not
sink in all the way to my neck immediately. Another hazard to put in the old memory bank.

Lots of outdoors people think they have seen it all and have a little feeling of being bullet proof.
I trout fish on average 160 days a season. The beautiful flower ordeal from yesterday humbled me
and gave me a "new" appreciation for my wading belt.