I thought the season was winding down. I went to the only place in Western MA. that does not have 10 times the normal flow. I walked up along the side of the river and stopped to look at the Redds. Its a little early in the season and the fish are feisty, fighting for who gets to mate with whom. It reminded me of a bunch of college guys at a bar, jockeying for position next to the hottest girl they have a chance with, and an occiasional scuffle or two.
I continued up the river to a well known pool and threw my GRHE into the lower end of the pool. Most action is usually at the upper end, but I saw a local guide pull out a couple of hogs from the lower end earlier in the year so I thought I’d give it a chance. I am glad I did. I hooked and landed a 21" hook jawed brown trout that cleared water twice in its effort to get away. Idiot that I was, I forgot to bring my camera and net. No photo, and the fight took an extra few seconds without the net. Once the fish was in hand she was quite sedate. I freed her from the hook and then spent several minutes reviving her. It was quite a wonderful fish, and my personal best for a brown. I did get a few other bites and one other hook up during the hour I had. One gent above me caught mucho fish, but none that compared with this baby.
The answer is yes, I will be back next week. For sure.
I’m sooo envious! Today is one of those beautiful, even almost warm, fall days, that would be so perfect on the stream … but the season is over! Arragghh! So, I’m cleaning out closets! Double arragghh!
Glad you were able to get out and enjoy.
Does the term snowbird mean anything to
you? Actually, winter is the “off season”
in florida and cheap rentals/accomodations
are rather affordable. All kinds of dining
specials as well. You’d be surprised how
economically you might spend a period of
time where evening brings out the sweaters
and snow shovels are unheard of.G Warm
regards, Jim
Betty, don’t let dixieangler get you down. When I went out for a few minutes on Monday, there were only 2 hatches coming off of the pool that I was fishing. It really isn’t THAT much better down here, it just seems like it when your’re snowbound somewhere else.
Snowbirds,eh? Those are the guys that head south, creating long waits in restaurants, traffic snarls, and conjested fishing down there, right? I like 'em ‘cuz they leave the rivers up here quite for the C&R season!!
Shortly (oh, please be shortly!!) I’ll be walking the rivers’ edge, leaving only my footprints in the snow, watching eagles soar, and catching beautiful trout! Granted, I’ll have to dip my hands in the water to warm them up … but, hey, I’ll make allowances!
Trouts don’t live in ugly places
[This message has been edited by Betty Hiner (edited 05 November 2005).]
Ed’s right, Betty, the season here has been slow to start so far with only one small cold front. Fishing is not great right now. We need some of those cold fronts from Yankeeland to get the fish to bite regularly. Maybe some Snowbirds will bring some of that cooler weather down with them during the annual migration. The traffic on the road is pretty heavy with them right now. When I was out on the water Thursday, the Specks are now schooling (I saw schools down deep ranging from 50 to 100 individuals on the finder) but not biting yet. I think they need a few more cold fronts to turn them on. Water temperature was only 73 degrees and needs to be cooler. The Specks skunked me and my fishing buddy Thursday. Gasp, we even resorted to live minnows and they wouldn’t even bite a live minnow. We threw everything we had at them but they had a good case of lockjaw. We saw other anglers out that day that also got skunked so we didn’t feel too bad.
Robert B. McCorquodale
Sebring, FL
“Flip a fly”
[This message has been edited by dixieangler (edited 05 November 2005).]
.