Scouting Time!!!!

[spinner1]

I am a closed season scouting nut. I actually preach about it. Yesterday the weather was overcast like I like it for scouting and 65 degrees. I decided to do some scouting of a familiar area and an extra large trout.

Closing day of 2011 I had two run ins with the biggest small stream trout I have ever seen. My friend Floren lost it at his feet. I got a really good look at it. The female brown was approximately 30 inches long and skinny. She had a very distinctive markings. Lots of small dark spots and they were close together. I have even had dreams about her.

2012 season I fished the hole I saw her in maybe 50 times. I fished below and upstream of where she was lost. 2012 was a very dry year and the holes were way shallower than the 2011 season.

I decided I was going to scout the deepest hole in the area. The place a big fish could winter in. A hole that had a slow deep bottom so she could hold in place without much effort. There needed to be a feed lane at the top of the hole she could venture in to from time to to time to eat. I knew right where to go.

The hole was about 500 yards downstream of where she had been hooked prior. It is almost in a tiny dorf in Richland County. I went out to the hole and sat down. It was overcast when I sat down. About 25 minutes of sitting there and nothing happened. The sun peaked out from between the clouds. I thought the big girl would not show her face in a sunny environment.

I was just about to stand up and I saw movement at the top of the hole in the feed funnel. Then there was a big wake going down stream and then I saw it. I saw the side of an enormous trout flash in the shallow funnel. There was that distinctive spot pattern!!! She showed herself again.

I hypothesize she was up at the head of the hole feeding in the shallow funnel. She felt hidden by the current and the overcast skies. When the sun peaked out she felt exposed and retreated to the depths of the pool . First Saturday of March I have a date with this girl again.