Winter Trout

Sylvia and I got in the mood to drive up on Rainy Mountain this week and see how much snow the mountain has received so far. You know, just to check things out. It seems there hasn't been as much snowfall as we've seen in the last few years. I'm thinking (hoping) we may have a good spring for fishing this year, in view of a short runoff...to give us more fishing time on the streams.

I brought along a fly rod as Sylvia suggested, just in case there was a section of stream looking "trouty" and not frozen over. We stopped at a place I frequent each year and was pleasantly surprised to see the stream, at this location, clear and running free of ice. The rod got rigged up and I quickly climbed down to the stream to see if there were any hungry trout swimming around. There were...and best of all, they were rising to a dry fly. Yep, the temperature was warm and there was a nice hatch breaking out over the surface of the stream. Lucky me!

It was just a wonderful day being in the outdoors and we enjoyed our time up on the mountain so very much. We're thinking it would be good to go for a day trip somewhere in the outdoors each week. Yeah, outdoors in the clean air is a nice, healthy goal.

Gear: Winston WT 7' 2wt fly rod; Trutta Perfetta fly reel; Rio LightLine WF3F; Tan Elk Hair Caddis dry fly.

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