I've been out on the local branch of the White, with one tiny fish to show for it. I've spent an entire day on the Dog, with two small brookies for my effort. I've spent some time below Bethel on the White and found dangerous wading conditions and high winds, and I simply gave up.
And then, there was last Thursday. We were scheduled for a lot of rain heading into the weekend and it was obvious rivers would be in rough shape. So, I took off work last Thursday. I wrote this on a post on my other blog after that day:
Luckily, I had taken Thursday as a vacation day to go fly fishing. I had tried the main branch of the White River on Sunday and there was too much water. But, I was downstream from where two other branches of the White dump into the main branch. This time, I stayed on the main branch, but went about 15 miles upstream from where I fished last Sunday. I went to a popular spot to start and fished there from about noon until 4:00. There were a few bugs hatching, mostly Hendricksons, so I used a pheasant tail nymph to try to approximate the Hendrickson in its nymph phase. It took me a while to figure things out, but I finally realized the fish were holding high in the holes, often in some white water just below a drop-off. They wouldn't touch anything that wasn't drifting exactly with the current. And, the takes were very subtle. After all of this finally registered with me, I hooked into 5 wild rainbows and got 3 of them to the net.
A little after 4:00, I decided to find another area to fish. I drove around for a bit before finally settling on a stretch I'd never fished before near the town of Stockbridge. It looked like some fishable riffles that would eventually lead me to a couple holes that looked very promising. On my third cast in the shallower water, a fish slammed my fly hard. It turned out to be a stocked rainbow. I had wandered into an area visited by the stocking truck the day before. While stocked fish aren't my first choice, they can provide a lot of fun and they aren't very picky. I caught a second fish on my 6th cast and a 3rd on my 10th cast. As I moved downstream, the fishing just got better. Eventually, I caught 5 fish at one spot without moving my feet at all. By the time I'd fished down to the deeper holes that had intrigued me earlier, I had caught close to 20 fish at this spot already. The deeper holes yielded nothing, so I started to slowly work my way back upstream. By the time I got back to where I'd started, I'd caught 31 stocked trout, making it 34 for the day. I'd been in my waders for 9 hours and I was tired, and darkness was approaching, so I got out of there.
Stocked fish aren't very smart, but I still had some fun. And, maybe by catching and then releasing them, they will learn something and not be such easy prey for the next fisherman that comes along, one who might be looking for dinner. On occasion, these stocked fish can adapt to the wild and thrive in the river. Last year, I took a large holdover rainbow that had spent more than a full year in the river. It's rare, but it happens. But, most stocked fish end up on a dinner plate somewhere. I have no objections to that at all. They really are a consumable resource. I even wonder if we should stock the rivers here in Vermont that have reproducing fish populations. But, stocking is popular and is not likely to go away soon. And, it provided me with 3 hours of fun yesterday.
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