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3. Early Spring on a little wild trout creek

I haven't posted here in quite a while, and that's because I haven't been doing all that much fishing-life gets crazy, and you sometimes don't have time to get out there and do what you love more than anything else. But I'm back, and I did get out today on a little spring creek about a half hour from home, a creek that I've written quite a few reports about on here. I couldn't get on the water until about 4 PM, but it was reasonably warm (upper 40s) and there were some caddis coming off. Anyway, I fished with a #12 Elk Hair Caddis with a #20 Pheasant Tail underneath. The water was up a little and off color after a recent rain, but not too bad. The first spring grass of the year was coming up, and there were even a few flowers just trying to bloom-which made my time out there pretty nice. The fish were up in the riffles feeding pretty actively, and I got two on the Caddis and three on the Pheasant Tail. They ranged from very small to 12", which is about as good as you can hope for on a daily basis from this creek. Anyway, it was good to see that after too long being off the water that I still more or less seemed to know what I'm doing, and it just felt unspeakably good to feel a couple of pretty wild rainbows in my hand.

MO, that sounds fabulous! Especially the part about the first green grass and flowers trying to bloom, even beyond the fishies...We are still looking at a foot of snow up here in the frozen North, though I hear there are steelhead now in my new "backyard" (see my post for pictures) that I need to get out and harass. At the moment, I am desperately trying to finish up my aquatic entomology project for a quite incompetant project manager (not my own boss, he is in agreement with my opinion on this person) and once it is done I can dedicate some free time while awaiting the next work project to some early spring fly fishing. Besides the steelies there is a lake in my hometown downstate that should be ice-free in the next few weeks, and once it is the blugills, crappie, and occasional yellow perch will be in the shallows looking for food, which apparently a chartreuse Woolly Bugger or silver/gray KBF seems to imitate very well. But trout, now I'm in proper country to pursue them again and soon enough they will be in season...Light Hendricksons starting in mid-April if all goes well...

Good job and send us some photos!

Jonathon

P.S. How's "Plan Montana" coming along? Any job prospects?

Glad you enjoyed the report.
"P.S. How's "Plan Montana" coming along? Any job prospects?"

Not well at this point-and thinking back on it, what could I really have expected with the job market as it is? It just doesn't seem to be in the cards for this year, though I still intend to make it work as soon as possible. A bummer for sure, but its hard to be too upset right at the moment with the local fishing getting pretty darn good-even the bass and bluegill are starting to wake up. It seems I will have at least another spring and summer of fishing in the Ozarks.

MO, I'm envious that your spring comes earlier than ours does here. My local weather forecast has nothing approaching 40 F for the next 10 days. I can't wait for those first few 60+ days! Fishing will be right behind them. The last flies I threw were at bluegill feeding on some kind of midge hatch (I think) last November in my hometown lake downstate, a couple of nice black crappie in there as well. As I said, if it's not at steelhead up here (which I really should do, the boss is bugging me to do it since I'm within walking distance of steelhead holes) it will be on this little lake in a few weeks that those same 'gills & crappie should be waking up and getting hungry. In fact, way back in January I did a couple of ice-fishing runs out there and the second time I caught 9 'gills. I'd much rather do it on my 3-weight though!

Too bad "Plan Montana" has to be put on hold, but if you want it bad enough, you'll get there. Let's just hope our economy gets better. Hey, I'm actually back to work for the first time in over three years, not really full time but I may get there if we can focus on the aquatic entomology stuff and get a foothold in that market. If that ends up being the case I'll never leave here - I practically have the Huron National Forest in my backyard! And almost too many fishing opportunities to mention - northern Michigan is loaded with them. Not very hard to find a nice stretch of water all to yourself, either...BTW, I have a guest room in my new place if you should ever find yourself up this way!

Jonathon

Well wouldn't you know now that I'm talking about spring, I just figured out its supposed to snow tomorrow night...But I think spring is still here anyway, as the highs every other day in the 10 day forecast is 50+.

We had absolutely torrential rains all day today anyway that will make even the most stable spring creeks unfishable for a few days.

By the way, good luck with the steelhead! That's a kind of fishing I've always wanted to try but never have been able too.