Trip Report -- Striking Out on Pre-Spawn Smallies

You sure there's fish in there?

On Saturday, I spent the better part of four hours throwing everything I could think at a quarter mile stretch of water that I was sure held fish of some sort. Did I see any? Not really. Did I get any bites? Not that I could tell. But I'm 99% sure they were there. My first inclination is to blame myself. Surely, I was doing something wrong. On top of that, my waders sprung a leak along a seam, and my right leg had slowly filled up with water.

I'm going to write a separate post on dealing with the mental fallout of failed outings, but suffice it to say, I was not a happy camper. My first inclination is to blame myself. Surely, I was doing something wrong. I just had no clue what it was. I felt like I fished well, and fished hard. And as I walked up to my car and started packing up my gear, I also felt like I had wasted a bunch of time and came away with nothing. No lessons learned.

The truth is I got to spend time on a new stretch of water. I still feel as though it's a good stretch of water. I saw multiple insect hatches. I felt the water rise and fall with the hourly pulses from the dam miles away. I got a look at the river's topography, learning where structure and pools lay beneath the surface. I used split shot for the first time. I got to fish with a rod I had broken nearly ten years ago and never fixed until a couple weeks ago.

Fishing can be hard, and sometimes with no explanation as to why. But look for victories wherever you can find them.

P.S.: I went to a party that had a bunch of other anglers there, and turns out everyone had a rough go of it that day. We decided to blame it on the weather. Right or wrong, it has been a weird week in March, with the temps fluctuating between 20 and 80 degrees Fahrenheit and everything from thunderstorms to snow.