Even A Blind Squirrel Finds A Trout Every Now And Then

Since the weather has been warming quite dramatically in recent weeks, even though the past few days have been in the fifties during the daytime, I figured that the run off would make the Swan River all but un-fishable.  But with an afternoon of unproductiveness staring me in the face, I thought to myself, "why not head out and take a look?  Maybe Pacific Park will have area's that can be fished?"  And with that thought, I began to gather my equipment.

Waders and boots, fishing vest with back up gang hooks, Polarized Sunglasses , a bite to eat and I was off.  Within 30 minutes I was at the river and by the grace of God, no one was there (I prefer to fish alone whenever possible).  Withing 45 minutes of thinking the above thought I was standing in the water, basking in the glory that brings me as much peace as any single activity that I can engage in. I'm glad I had the thought and more importantly took the time to act on it!

Within minutes of starting to fish I had a bite and missed the son of a gun.  "It's okay I thought, I'm rusty this early in the season".  Two more casts and a hooked a fish (presumably a rainbow trout?) and as it shook it's head, threw the gang hooks from it's mouth.  I couldn't believe it, because that rarely happens, but oh well, right?  Over the next 15 or so minutes I hooked and lost four more fish, so I moved downstream a bit.

I was fishing the edge of a very large pool, where the water was raging in the center.  The edge was the only place that I could get a good drift and the fish obviously preferred the slower current as well.  Finally, I hooked what felt like a decent little rainbow and this time I could tell I got a good hook set.  I knew the fish wasn't huge, but it's sometimes hard to gauge this early in the year, so I took my time.  Within a minute or so I was admiring a nice, fat, little 12 or so inch rainbow trout before returning her to the water from which she came.  This was a well fed rainbow, that reminded me of one of those little Nerf footballs that I used to have when I was growing up.  Yep, she was a fattie!

The bottom line is that even a blind squirrel like me can find a trout every once in a while.