hooklineandskillet

Fishing Mianus River, May 13th, 2017 from John Coleman on Vimeo.

While it was opening day April 8th my season has gotten off to a… fish friendly start.  While I have spent a good amount of time on the river (3 days), most of that has been poking around and not poking fish.  I think I may have pricked on rainbow’s lip the other day (story to follow)

High Flows on Opening Day – Jeremy River

Keeping the Bass Honest on Greenwich Point (NYC in the background)

Great story about the little fly below this print.  It was a day of struggles and you learn from your struggles.  I adventured too much I figured there were fish behind every bolder as as long as I forded the river and got to that boulder and got a cast in, I would be rewarded with a fish.  While I was getting there and getting a cast in, it wasn’t with the right flies in the right way and my spacing was off.  my leader was too short and so was my patience.  my fly was to big and so was my ambition.  I needed to tune in and focus on giving the fish what they wanted – not trying to impose my will on the fish, never works.  After poking around the lower Salmon Matt and I headed to the upper river.  I saw some guys in a prior trip yanking trout out just below the falls.  Matt and I checked it out and it was very crowded so we headed just above the falls.  When I waded in next to Matt to get a fly he pointed out that he was seeing some surface action.  Trout were rising to the surface to gulp down white caddis.  I didn’t know what a white caddis was but I knew it was white and I knew getting a trout on the surface with a dry fly was the dream.  I headed up river and started casting the below fly with a little fly hanging off the back.  it was kind of a mess but I just kept casting and casting etc.  All of the sudden I’m standing there and a small white moth like bug falls on to the surface of the river just up river from me.  It fluttered around and drifted right past me and it popped into my head “oh! That! is a white caddis!.”  Just then, as I was staring eye to eye with the insect slightly down river from where my feet were planted, a rainbow trout emerges from behind a rock, rips to the surface, gulps down my friend with athleticism that is abundant in nature but rarely witnessed.   Curved, head to tail, at the water’s surface, it shoot down to its protected cavern belly full of supposed “White Caddis”.

Matt’s Trout (NOT MINE)

Matt on the Salmon River

Town at the bottom of the box canyon:

Last night we had dinner at purple sage on Main Street. It was pretty awesome. I’m hoping to copy their cornmeal crusted trout this spring when ct fishing season opens on April 8th

Today I skied Park City. It’s giant and the views were nice but the sun just didn’t warm the snow enough this morning to soften it up. I should have gone out in the afternoon instead of the morning. By lunch my legs had had it. Kt and I met at the town loft base for pb&j sandwichs then went for a stroll. Not too shabby.

Katie’s uncle Greg was kind enough to pass along some Colchester venison harvested from her grandparents woods: