Home Forums Fishing Flyfishing Are you ready for the first trip????

Today I got my fly rods out, vest, boots, waders, etc.. Checked 'em over... Placed them in the pickup for the upcoming season.. They will be there til it gets too cold to fly fish this fall or early winter.. Saw one boat on the Platte this afternoon as I took out some junk to the dump.. It is not far away.. Hope you are all ready...

Hate to tell you, but out here, you can fish good water every single day of the year. It's all just a matter of whether or not you want to be out there.

Cabin fever setting in WCH? Me too:(
I actually dissected an old Mitchell 300 last week out of pure boredom so I think I can honestly say "yes" I'm ready.

I'm even more anxious this year now that I've sold my fur and have the money for that new canoe burning a hole in my pocket.
A problem I plan to rectify before the weeks end.

Also have a new TFO 6wt I haven't used yet so between the new rod and new canoe I should be in tall cotton come spring.

Hope yours is a good one too.

FG, what kind of canoe are you going to get.. We have an old Sportspal that was fun.. My wife is from Mich. and she has a small 13 foot motor boat.. We plan to take it to the mountains for some lake fishing later this summer.. Maybe hit the walleye lake north of Sinclair.. Never fished for walleye.. Time is getting closer... Keep us posted on your trips..
Scott, there are some waters below a couple dams within driving distance of my place, but I don't do cold weather fishing anymore.. I like to fly fish, but I don't love to fly fish, especially in cold weather!!!!!!!!!!!!

No reason to let a little weather stop one. When it gets down into the teens and single digits, the water is warmer than the air.

My sentiments exactly. ^

I'm getting an Old Town Solo. Either the 11'9" Discovery or the 12' Pack.
The pack's a third lighter (32# vs 49#) but costs twice as much. I'm waiting on a call from a guy up in Post Falls that might be able to get me a deal on the Pack. Otherwise Sportsman's Whorehouse over in Lewiston has the Discovery in stock, so I'll go that route.

1 Minute,,,,, you must be a Steelheader. I watch those crazy bastids fishing for em from my deck overlooking the Clearwater all winter. Not only is it cold but they do allot more fishing than catching. I'll stick with my little 4&6wt's and the Smallies in the summer thank you:)

Well there is still a lot of snow pack on the ground here in CT. and its been anything but warm. Tonight its going to get down to near zero. Even with all the snow and it warms up, the snow melt will keep the water temps low, in the mid 30"s experience tells me its better when the water temps hit around 40 -42, then you can fish and be assured if you hit all the good spots you will pick up fish. Spring is going to be late this year I think, the Weather Pattern dose not look like its going to change from the Cold for another few weeks so for around my neck of the woods, normal late feb and march conditions might come towards the end of the month or the first week in April. As they say in the Game of thrones "Winter is Coming" or is that The Stick of truth, I get confused on that!

I tried fishing the Blue in CO in December of 2011. Relatively speaking, it was a pretty nice day. Even so, ice on the guides, line and leader made for an exasperating experience. I can see how fishing in sub-freezing temps could get old, fast.

When I worked, I often fished every evening after work from the time the lake opened in March until maybe May.. At that time the out of staters took over the lake and I left for other areas.. The cold, freezing guides, etc. were fun when I was 20-40 years old, now, it is nice to sit by the fire, or shoot gophers during those days and fish in June...

I fished the Wind below Boysen yesterday, and picked up a nice 21in rainbow, a big old slutty male.They're starting to stage. Could see pockets of them, but pretty picky about presentation. Water's still a little too cold for big action.

I've been heading to the pond the past week or so for some casting practice. The older boy gets to use the Bassinator (spinning rod with a wacky rigged Senko). However, I reserve the right to fish the area outside of his casting radius with that rig, and managed the first bass of the year. A nice 3.5, maybe 4 pound fish.

Saw some activity that looked like it could have been panfish up in the inlet.

Friday, we're back at it again. I'll bring flies instead of yarn for my rods...

I normally get a trip or two in on local water during the winter but this winter has been miserable so I thought why add to the misery by standing in barely liquid water and not catching fish.

This last week is really when my season starts as my wife and I are out at our cabin in WV for a week for her birthday and our anniversary so I get a day on a couple streams in Western Md. I thought I was ready, lines were cleaned, leaders replaced but I realized that I wasn't quite as ready as I thought.

The night before found me tying up some size 14 Elk Hair Caddis and some size 18 black stoneflies as the Caddis w/ the stonefly dropper is the ticket on the Cassleman and Town Creek early season. If it's warm you'll get a stonefly hatch but no chance of that this year. Once on the water I realized my reading glasses from my vest were not there. My spools of 5x and 6X fluorocarbon tippet were empty. (Ok, to be fair the 5X had about two rotations on it!). My fingerless gloves stank of the last fish of last year. I also remembered that at an air temp of 29 that the floatant has to go in an inside pocket if it's not going to be the consistency of JB Weld.

On the bright side, the waders didn't leak and I didn't fall in. I caught some nice fish in both streams (enough to lose count) and had a mature bald eagle silently sail up town creek 15' over my head. Saw a lot of deer and turkey and one coyote.

Western Md is as pretty as any place on the east coast with the only problem being it's attached to the populated liberal bastions in central Md. For any of you folks hitting the Cassleman this year, the bridge below Browning's cabins is closed so you have to do an end run from the north end to get downstream. Lots of Maple syrup being cooked out there and looking forward to picking some up next trip out.

By the way, it's modern River road bridge that is closed and not the famous Casselman bridge which is still neat to walk over and fish near as it's celebrating it's 203rd birthday this year. I have to stop at least once a year to fish near it just to imagine what it was like when George Washington rode across it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casselman_Bridge

Last week: