TROUT SEASON OPENING

Saturday was the trout season opening day in France. The day awaited by thousands of anglers was finally here, I am a fishing enthusiast since I was a kid but I know from my experience that this symbolic day is rarely a good fishing day. At least if I considered a good fishing day with lots of trouts caught in very little time. 

I always open the season on the same small stream and this year I only arrive one hour and a half after the legal hour. I did not see traces of feet or tires on the path that leads nearby and that was a good sign. I did take my time to prepare my rod, I did watch the stream flowing in front of me and its water was stained because it had rained a lot the day before. 

It was very cold, around 39° F, the sky was low and plain grey; with lower temperature I would have expected snow. The trout season opening is more like a ritual and anglers feel the need to join in. It means that spring is at hand.

The first fishes I did catch were parrs and that unfortunately means that I had very little chances to catch a nice sized trout this day. With my long experience of this small stream I know that a high catch rates of these little bastards means that bigger fishes (trouts) are not active on food at all.

After an hour of fishing I still not had caught any trout so I decided to go to one of my favorite spot of the stream about two miles away. The air temperature was remaining very low and the wind from the North was blowing more and more so this spot would be my last chance to catch a trout today. I did catch at the first cast! Not a big one but pretty representative of the kind of trout this small stream can produce.

After releasing this fish, once my hands were wet I did feel the coldness even more and decided to go back home. This opening day will not remain in history but I did not feel like going on casting while I knew that I had very little chances to catch any other trout. Many people in the early days of the season go fishing every day, sometimes all day long, trying hard to catch trouts despite terrible conditions and the only reward they get is frustration and they put the rods back to the rack until next season after a couple of weeks. 

I did spend two nice hours on the stream for the opening day and it was enough, I have six months to go fishing so until then I will hopefully have better days.