Luke
Well-Known Member
So while with the extended season in 2011 I landed at least 1 piece of chrome on every outing... 2012 until last week has sucked.
It started off with my uncle/god father/ fishing mentor dying suddenly on New Year’s Day and got worse for a few weeks in other ways. Going out to the streams has been how I have been dealing with the stress of the last 6 months and last week things finally started to turn around in my life. But this is a fishing forum so I will stick to that
I had a chance at my first steel of 2012 on Wednesday but the bugger shook the hook, no matter being out near water is still relaxing, and I have landed 3 suckers this New Year, lol.
Today went a little bit better, went out after work for an hour, snow was falling before I hit the water at 4:30. There was no one else fishing to my surprise. I tried fishing my usual drift but due to an injured foot decided to get to a more comfortable position and drift a spot on a hunch. 2 Drifts later *Slurp* float goes down. I am standing in the water and the float is only 3 or 4 feet past my rod tip, maybe less, but I don’t remember any snags in the spot. All of a sudden I see something come closer to the surface and headshake. No, it’s definitely not a snag. The water is murky and the fish is dark, is it a brown? A bow? I can’t tell. At first it feels like a boot and I think there won’t be a fight.
Wrong! The fish took me all over the river. The snow made the pin slippery and my hands wet, I would myself at points palming the line on the spool to slow down the fish as it was tearing around the river. On run it took was so fast and long it felt like fighting it in open water on the lake. Then came the challenge of landing, slippery snowy rocks, slippery logs, ice, and a long rod with nowhere to beach the fish.
Well eventually I managed to get situated in a spot and bring the big boy to the net. Nice big buck, measured out at 30"
A few shots and back he went. After the fight he gave and how calm he was on the ground I got my hands wet to make sure to revive him, I was sure it would take a while. He proved me wrong again, it took less than a minute before he had enough energy to let me know I should let go of his tail and he swam away to make some kids.
I caught his little brother not too much later; this one was practically under my rod tip. The battle with the little guy was much shorter, especially since I now had a landing strategy. I got pictures but they aren’t very nice due to the snow. He was also released and swam off even quicker than his big brother.
It started off with my uncle/god father/ fishing mentor dying suddenly on New Year’s Day and got worse for a few weeks in other ways. Going out to the streams has been how I have been dealing with the stress of the last 6 months and last week things finally started to turn around in my life. But this is a fishing forum so I will stick to that
I had a chance at my first steel of 2012 on Wednesday but the bugger shook the hook, no matter being out near water is still relaxing, and I have landed 3 suckers this New Year, lol.
Today went a little bit better, went out after work for an hour, snow was falling before I hit the water at 4:30. There was no one else fishing to my surprise. I tried fishing my usual drift but due to an injured foot decided to get to a more comfortable position and drift a spot on a hunch. 2 Drifts later *Slurp* float goes down. I am standing in the water and the float is only 3 or 4 feet past my rod tip, maybe less, but I don’t remember any snags in the spot. All of a sudden I see something come closer to the surface and headshake. No, it’s definitely not a snag. The water is murky and the fish is dark, is it a brown? A bow? I can’t tell. At first it feels like a boot and I think there won’t be a fight.
Wrong! The fish took me all over the river. The snow made the pin slippery and my hands wet, I would myself at points palming the line on the spool to slow down the fish as it was tearing around the river. On run it took was so fast and long it felt like fighting it in open water on the lake. Then came the challenge of landing, slippery snowy rocks, slippery logs, ice, and a long rod with nowhere to beach the fish.
Well eventually I managed to get situated in a spot and bring the big boy to the net. Nice big buck, measured out at 30"
A few shots and back he went. After the fight he gave and how calm he was on the ground I got my hands wet to make sure to revive him, I was sure it would take a while. He proved me wrong again, it took less than a minute before he had enough energy to let me know I should let go of his tail and he swam away to make some kids.
I caught his little brother not too much later; this one was practically under my rod tip. The battle with the little guy was much shorter, especially since I now had a landing strategy. I got pictures but they aren’t very nice due to the snow. He was also released and swam off even quicker than his big brother.
