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Last year, I set a personal record for the least amount of days in my life that I spent fishing. How many days? Only 9. Why? Most of my fishing is done trolling from my canoe and the average weather patterns were not friendly. Rain or windy conditions or a combination of the two were the main reasons, let alone helping to care for our identical twin grandsons with my wife, Betty.
This season seems to have similar weather problems, wind, rain or a combination. Nearly every day has had wind factors that make it nearly impossible conditions for the use of a canoe. I missed the opening of the landlocked salmon season and the opening day of trout ponds. My chance to fish didn’t finally come until Tuesday, June 3rd. Although the effort was well worth it, fishing time was ultra short when the wind increased, forcing me to quit, long before I wanted or intended to.
Brook trout - Salvelinus
fontinalis: Averages 6-12 inches in streams, 10-12
inches in ponds.
My destination was Whittemore Lake in Bennington, New Hampshire. It’s a lake I have fished for trout for over 35 years. I arrived at Whittemore at 8:45 a.m. I rigged my flyrod with sinking fly line and tied on a fly of my own innovation called the Sparkle Sparrow, patterned after the Sparrow wet fly by famous fly-tier and world angler, Jack Gartside. I have always had great results using both my Sparkle Sparrow and Jack’s Sparrow patterns. I launched and began fishing at 9:00 a.m. It didn’t take long for the first trout to whack my Sparkle Sparrow and make my day.
At 9:15, I caught and released my first trout, a brook trout. At 9:30, another brook trout was caught and released. At 9:35, a real fighter grabbed the Sparkle Sparrow, a 13 inch rainbow! At 9:50, another brookie was caught. At 9:51, another brook trout was brought to net. At 10:15, another brookie grabbed the Sparkle Sparrow. Another hit the fly and was brought in at 10:28. Another brook trout was caught and released at 10:50. Ten minutes later, at 11:00, another brookie came to net. Seven minutes after that, another brook trout was caught.
It was a fantastic morning, a memory maker. Then the wind conditions had escalated and conditions became to difficult to handle the canoe and tend to further fishing, which forced me to
end the day. But, how can one complain? If that wind hadn’t escalated, I just wonder how many more trout I might have caught? I normally spend anywhere from 8 to 10 hours on the water. In two hours and seven minutes, I had caught and released a total of 11 trout. Oh well, it was a great first day of fishing for me this year and that’s what counts. Oh, ya. I know, "All fishermen are liars except you and me and sometimes I wonder about you."
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