Opening Day in New York

I have no pictures to show you and I didn’t even land a trout but man did I have some incredible action. The streams here are very low and clear which meant very shy trout. The first one was in the 20 to 21 inch range and chased the minnow right to my feet. He then turned to go back into his run and when I stopped the minnows retrieve right in front of me he turned back and grabbed it. Always tough  when I have a big one like that on such a short line and he snapped that 6# leader like it was cotton thread. It doesn’t happen often but once in awhile……….. Numerous expletive deletes followed and I continued on. The second fish came out of nowhere in a small run and I never saw how big this one was but when he turned after missing the minnow, the water boiled as if Shamu had attacked. Shaking my head I continued on while more verbal incantations were being uttered. In the very next little run, which had absolutely no holding structure of any kind other than a slight depression in the stream bed, I had one follow the minnow that looked to be in the 22 to 23 inch range and had the body dimensions of a carp. Thus in the course of 3 hours I had seen three trophies and landed none. I was happy as Hades to have had a chance at fish of this caliber in a stream about 10 feet or less across and crystal clear. I had one my good friends flag me down on the way home and he and his buddy had caught a pair of 16 inchers and one 14. All this reinforced my previous post about how many holdovers are left from last year and how big they might just be. It felt great to be out there today and I was only out for about 3 hours and had this action. A BIG thanks to all those soldiers on duty around the world that allow us to pursue our passions without feeling like an 8 pointer on opening day. I will be heading into the Adirondacks this week and will have another post on this first mission when I return.