We have been fortunate to have a nice long stretch of warm weather in our January thaw this year. I posted last Sunday on my first outing of the year which was most enjoyable, but I used a spinning outfit as I wasn't sure how deep the fish would be this early in the year. This trip, I took my 4wt outfit to see if the bream were hitting yet. While I didn't catch as many fish as last trip, I did catch about 25 mixed bass and bream. Most of the bass were smaller which is to be expected when I'm using a size 12 fly, but there were a few 2+ pound bass mixed in. The bream on the other hand had several very nice fish mixed in with 4 of them around 13 inches long and nice and fat. I used a Carters SEM Sculphin fly which is my go-to early season bream and crappie fly. Typically, I tie them with black rabbit fur tail and black body and a grizzly collor, which works very well for me. Final analysis, other than the fact that the wind kicked my butt for the first half of my 2 1/2 hour outing, it was great to get back out on the water and it looks like this spring might be fantastic fishing.


Jim Smith