Opening Day 2008

April 1st saw the landing and release of 6 fish in total.
The day's weather was anything but normal, I arrived at the river about 6:20 am, geared up and began fishing. The weather pattern for the day was a mix of everything possible: fog, light showers to heavy downpour, brilliant sunshine, temperatures into the mid 50's F and winds up to 30 MPH gusts, this made for an interesting day of fishing.

The water temperature measured out at 37F and the level - clarity was near excellent early that morning, as the winds, rains and rising temperatures moved into the days program, the water level shifted quickly to rising and turning a dull brown color.

I managed to land 2 wild browns of 18" and 20" on a # 2 heavily weighted Sirloin before the waters turned unfishable.
Pictured below is the 20" wild brown, the other 18" fish was all set up for photographs but decided to eagerly thrash out of the net, throw the hook and swim back into the icy waters....Yeah right!!!!! fish story if one was ever told......NO!!!!!!! plain outright, a fish in full survival mode, that fish did not attain such a size by hanging out in bad situations.

Upon realizing that the large river I was fishing was soon to unfishable and dangerous, I moved quickly to the farthest upstream reaches of small stream, and managed to land 3 more fish on a # 6 Sirloin and a # 8 Ausble Ugly, these fish were wild browns and one native brook trout.