First Trout of the Spring

Something from the tackle box: 

       Dear friends, God is good.  So I beg you to offer your bodies to him as a living sacrifice, pure and pleasing.  That’s the most sensible way to serve God.  Don’t be like the people of this world, but let God change the way you think.  Then you will know how to do everything that is good and pleasing to him.  (Romans 12:1-2 CEV)

The evening of May 17, 2016

       This afternoon I had an hour or so in-between other things to do and sat down with a book of short stories I’ve been working on.  I read a story by written by Charles Gaines, about a sporting trip that he and some friends made to go hunting and fishing in Louisiana, in a book of articles from old issues of Men’s Journal.  It was a good story, and I especially liked the parts about fly-fishing for redfish in the brackish swamps and bayous along the coast.  It sounded like a great time to me.  And it put me in a hankering mood to get back out on the water with one of my own buggy whips.  We don’t have any brackish water to support big redfish in Michigan, but we’ve got plenty of coldwater streams that support pan-sized trout – and I hadn’t caught one yet this spring!

       I have given it a couple of tries since the season opened two weeks ago though, at my favorite stretch of fly-fishable running water, Tinker’s Creek.  But, as of earlier today, I had been frustrated in the attempt to gather anything into my landing net.  Not that this is the most important thing about getting out to fish for trout, both attempts were otherwise completely satisfactory in my experience of them, just no fish to take a picture of, that’s all. 

       My fist outing had been on the last Saturday of April, opening day of the trout season, bright and early in the morning.  I’ve fished Tinker’s Creek on opening day for the past couple of years and haven’t caught a fish yet!  Which is OK.  Mostly I go to talk to all the other opening morning fishermen, of which there are always quite a few, all fishing with worms.  Unlike some fly-fishermen, I don’t have anything against worm workers on the trout streams.  I used to be one myself, and understand that the trout do not belong to just those of us who prefer to fish the way I now do.  Anyway, I had a good morning, met some nice people, and even watched a couple of them haul in decent brownies on a baited hook, but no fish for me.

the honey hole where I started fishing

       My second outing was just last week.  Same spot, but this time I had it all to myself.  We’d had some rain, the water was running a little deeper and faster than I would have preferred, but it was not un-fishable – barely.   I started out at my favorite spot, a deep honey hole right next to the covered bridge on the upstream side.  This is the same spot I’d talked with and watched the worm fishermen catching fish on opening day.  But, with the water running so fast and high, it was probably a little too deep for any fish down there to take notice of, let alone rise to, my fly.  So I spent some time watching the water upstream where the stream widens and runs a bit slower and flatter. 

the spot I ended up fishing

       Sure enough, I saw something making ripple rings just above the spot where the water starts funneling down over rocks on it’s way to the bridge.  I got out and walked the shore to a spot where I got back in upstream of where I saw the signs of feeding, as I much prefer working a fly downstream over upstream, just my personal preference.  I thought I had it figured out, as on about my third cast that fish rose to an ant pattern I had tied on – and he continued rising to it – four more times over the next five minutes. – But he would not take hold of it!  Each time he would ruffle the water around it - and let it float on by without hauling it under!

right between those two clumps of brush

       Another fly-fisherman walked up looking for a good spot to get in the stream.  He asked me how I was doing, and I told him what was happening.  I said, “Watch this.” And sure enough, on my next cast the same thing happened again!  He just laughed and walked on down-steam to the other side of the covered bridge.  I never did get a hook into that fish’s lip – at least that night.

       Today, after reading those stories of catching redfish on the fly in Louisiana, I was primed and ready to go out and get that fish.  But I also remembered that my lovely wife had mentioned something about something that was going on when she got home from work, probably something that I needed to be around for, so I resigned myself to putting the fishing off for another day.

       Well, Kathy got home at six, and reminded me that what she had going was meeting of the coalition of local library representatives working to pass and upcoming County wide millage proposal to support those local libraries.  A meeting that I had nothing to contribute towards.  I was free to go fishing all evening long if I cared to! 

elk-hair caddis fly

       I was in Tinker’s Creek by six-thirty!  The water conditions were about the same as they had been a week before, as we’d had a bit more rain, and so I didn’t even try the honey hole by the bridge.  I went upstream and saw those feeding rings on the surface of the water right at the same spot I’d had that fish rising to my fly just a week earlier.  I went upstream a bit further to get in and started to work my way down-stream towards my fish.  I was fishing with my favorite pattern, and elk-hair caddis, tossed out with an old Conlon fiberglass rod that is within a year or two of being 60 years old, almost as old as I am.  I love the honey-soft feel of casting with the really old fiberglass rods of the 1950s and very early 60s. 

there she is, first trout of the season

       Today that fish wasn’t messing with my head like he had been last week, at least not quite as bad.  About a half-dozen casts to the spot between to clumps of bushes on the bank and she took it and ran. – But only for about two feet or so before she jumped out of the water and spit it out. 

       OK – I’d had a look at her. - Not too big, to be sure. -   Probably only nine inches on the outside. – More likely closer to eight. – But it was a trout!

       Quite often, if you get a fish on your line and then loose it, you might as well move on to another spot for a bit.  After winning a fight, a trout will often tear off for another part of the stream to rest and recuperate, while all of the thrashing will have spooked any other fish in the vicinity off from feeding for a while.  But this fight had been so brief that I decided that, perhaps, things would settle back into shape pretty quickly. 

       I’m glad I stayed there.  In about two minutes that same fly got another hit in the same spot.  I’m pretty sure it was the same fish!  This time she was hooked good.  She jumped and spun a few times, showing some nice color, but she was all mine.  I netted her, set her on the bank with my rod, took her picture, removed the hook, and then gently put her back in the water to swim off to resume whatever trouty social life she may have. 

Something to take home in your creel:

       Back in my worm-fishing days I used to keep every trout I could for the frying pan.  I loved trout, pan-fried in butter and garlic, back then – and I still love it today! - But, since I’ve gotten older and become a fly-fisherman, I’ve changed my usual means of coming by pan-fried trout.  As a general rule I’m a catch-and-release man now.  Whenever I catch a trout in a local stream – I set it free – and then go buy a couple of farm-raised trout fillets from a pretty decent fish-market in our area.  That way, I get my pan-fried trout – and – I get to go back and perhaps catch that same little beauty, in that same spot on Tinker’s Creek, all over again!