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3. Test - 2011

2011 was a less than average year for me and catching larger trout. The Catskills were plagued with high water until late May and while I do have a drift boat I didn't have the $35 I'd need every time I used the boat for a shuttle so I did my best wading the fringes of the rivers. Most of my larger trout were caught while I was in the boat. Montana was a blow-out with high water so we cancelled our trip. I did fair in Alaska and very good for steelhead. I fish alone 90% of the time so most of my 18" and larger fish never got a chance to pose for the camera.

Great photos.

I've only fished for salmon using pixies, and I've never caught anything.I have big hopes for salmon fly fishing though.

Now these are the type of pictures i look forward to when i log on to this site. Excellent stuff and you must consider yourself blessed to have fished all of these beautiful places.

There you go! Those Browns are sweet and that Steelhead looks like it might of been a lot of fun...A really healthy looking fish there.

I love the baseball cap...:) I like better the idea that it appears to be sun faded as the season progresses...How many days a year do you figure you get out Matt?

Thanks for sharing...A so-so year for you appears to be a banner year for the rest of us wanna-bees...;)

Spence

Hi Spence,

"I love the baseball cap...:) I like better the idea that it appears to be sun faded as the season progresses..."

How many days a year do you figure you get out Matt?

Thanks for sharing...A so-so year for you appears to be a banner year for the rest of us wanna-bees...;)"

Thank you for the advice on how to post pictures and defeat my shrinkage problem.

You are very observant, yea, you can't catch 'em if your not out on the water.

I average between 40 - 45 days just trout fishing in the Catskills, another ten in Montana, about six going for smallies, and at least six steelheading, more if conditions are favorable. About sixty from May to mid November. I go locally in April probably half a dozen times but just don't count the local stocked streams as "trips".

I try to fish as often as possible. I know I'm going to Heaven but I just don't know if God has any tailwaters up past the pearly gates.

I have been very fortunate, and blessed, to have had such a great life and to have fished so successfully in so many places.

With all the fish you catch I fear that maybe those that beat you there aren't looking forwad to your arrival! :) "We are going to have to share a beat with him!" Ernie, Joe Brooks, Marinaro, Lee Wulf, Leon Chandler, Chauncey, Art Flick, Gartside, Syl Nemes, etc, etc...Assuming that these boys made it in, it could be elbow-to-elbow.

If there are no streams in paradise it can't be called paradise, if you ask me...I may have to pass...;)

I remember, just before Christmas of 2009, at Rusty Gates' funeral in Grayling, the priest kept saying something about Rusty being in a better place...When I got home I emailed another Lodge regular who had also been at the funeral, that I knew better...I had actually sat with Rusty in one of "his better places" and it was on a bend on the South Branch of the Au Sable...He said he had thought the same thing when he heard it...

So Matt, maybe you are right. We got to fish em when we have them...

Spence

Matt,
ALways love your reports. Interestine how gutcutter was able to hide the ugle bridge pier with the browntrouts head in the mid may picture.

ASide from the great photos a public and personal thanks for the guidance and advice that have helped make my limited number of trips up to your beloved Delaware a lot easier to plan. Hopefully we get to wet a line together this season.
JW

Yes, he has very good photo composition skills. Hopefully they will continue in 2012 on the Missouri and he'll be able to pause long enough between battling his brutes to take my picture once in awhile.

fantastic photos! I love the one of the Silver Salmon that's kyped up and been in the river a while. He has very interesting colors. Nice work!

All the kyped males on this river (Johnson Creek) in Alaska had this coloration. This particular fish was caught in a slough off the main river. The salmon were just stacked up in there as the water was clear compared to the glacial color of the main. The guide told us they pull in ther for a while to clean out their gills.