Opening Day the Right Way

Most of you know me pretty well by now. You should all be aware that I the only reason I like opening day is that I am free to fish whatever small stream I choose to, with no fear of getting arrested for fishing water with no stocked fish during a closed season designated for protecting stocked fish. Anyway, I think opening day is a drag.

So I did opening day the right way, the way I always do: I stayed as far away from the crowds on the Salmon as I deemed necessary an fished for native brook trout and wild brown trout. I also ran into a few out bound salmon smolts, more on that later.

The first fish of the day was a gorgeous 9 inch female, the biggest wild brookie I have caught out of this stream in the five years I have fished it. She took a CDC caddis from the rippled surface of a glass clear pool. All of the small streams I fished were flowing at my favorite level, just a little high and dead clear.

The next stream was a little more generous, giving up quiet a number of its wild jewels to both the Ausable Ugly and the Something or Other wetfly.

I caught this nice fat brookie out of the run you see above. Of course, most of the fish are carrying spring weight, looking like the guys with huge beer bellies I used to see at 4H fairs back in Pennsylvania.

After I released one fish it decided to rest and take up shop.... right under my foot!I stood there motionless for a while, enjoying the fact that I was providing it a safe place to rest up.

I did get a little bit of time on the lower stretch of my home river, where some beavers came through last year, made some awesome new pools and undercut runs, then left to find a better place to build there home. In that stretch loaded with woody debris I hooked into an awesome little fish. Every spring one of my favorite parts of fishing my home water are the outgoing salmon smelts. They have grown much and are changing to a silvery, salt water ready fish, and the fight lik little demons. I have had the good fortune to catch a few truly big smolts in my time here, one 14 inchers and a 15 incher, both of which were strong enough to make me give chase. The two I caught today were not nearly that size, but boy was the bigger one pretty! It still had some red spots and the spots on its operculum were striking purple!

And that was that. I got really hungry and the Lion's food truck had left the covered bridge when I rode past there, so I had to go home.