Winter Trout

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Originally uploaded by ...olson family...

Bass are hard to come by this time of year. Especially when you get maybe a few hours to fish on a good day. All of the fishing mags talk about how you can catch them in the dead of winter with deep jigging, and dead sticking crankbaits. I have yet to figure this out. So, in this respect I am far from being a true "Bass Slayer."

That leaves us with chasing Trout in our local stocked Trout stream. Last Spring I read the blogs about how this stream was not worth your time. But putting an hour or two in here and there I bagged many Rainbows, and a couple Browns. This is a delayed harvest stream, which means the state puts in Trout in the Fall, Winter, and Spring, and then lifts catch and release restrictions in June as the water begins to warm beyond the range of Trout. Considering the location it is amazing the stream holds Trout as long as it does. Credit the efforts of my friend Duane and his stream monitoring group.

So far this year, the Trout have been harder to come by as they are less active than when the water warms in the Spring. They are also smaller as the VDGIF has apparently been less generous this past fall. But, at least you can still score an occasional Rainbow in the dead of winter. The Bass will have to wait. That is unless I can solve the mystery of the winter pig and jig, jigging spoon, and dead sticked deep diving crank bait. But I must figure this out before I retire.