First fishing outing of the season

After the cancellation of the fishing outing planned last weekend due to unfavorable weather I finally did take yesterday morning the way to my favorite creek for early in the season without really knowing what to expect because major rivers in the area still have very high and strongly stained water. So I arrived around 10 hours and a half and I was pleased to find that the water level had dropped since the opening of the season and I saw along the path that the stream was about to regain its original color that is really more beautiful than opaque grey.

As always on this stream fishes rarely betray their position, in this shallow and narrow stream  trout are almost impossible to sight so it is to the angler to read the current and potential positions where to cast his kebari. I was fishing with a pattern with which I like to fish, the Zenmai-dou, and I was surprised to see it be taken dry on the first cast. To me pattern categories categories like "wet" or "dry" do not exist anymore as I like fishing with the most versatile ties that can be used at different levels. Trout and salmon parr did show themselves very active until that the kebari drifted straight into their mouth.

After lunch which was a bit more sunny than that of the opening day I decided to go downstream because the sector explored in the morning I had seen a lot of footsteps making me me think that this stretch had been visited very often lately. Fishermen are probably far more numerous than usual on this stream as large rivers still have very high water level and that brings many fishermen back on the small streams they usually shun.

It is in this corner that I started fishing again,  a delicate and accurate cast bringing my kebari in the quiet strip at the foot of rotten trunk made me take my first legal sized trout of the season. In my area the legal size if you want to keep a trout is 24 centimeters. 

After releasing it I decided to ignore a sector that I know well and that somehow I prefer to reserve for myself later I walked upstream again to go to a spot where I have not fished in a long time. Along the way, traces of fishermen passage faded and then disappeared completely which was good to me because unfortunately some fishermen do not leave only footprints behind. I will never understand how some people can consider themselves as fishing enthusiasts and use the streams banks as dumps. 

There are throughout the ten kilometers that measures this stream many construction remains and they often provide excellent trout shelters. My Zenmai-dou had dried along the way and I did cast to the right through the remains of what once was a wall. This trout shelter was so tempting that I could not resist casting my kebari there. It did not drift five centimeters before a trout rose and took it. I was actually really pleased; this trout was beautiful and it is with a smile on my face that I put this amazing fish back to water.

After this moment of satisfaction and joy I did collapse my rod, put my line back on a spool and did take the path back home. It was my first real fishing outing of the year, it went very well and that's the main thing.

FIRST STILLWATER TENKARA 

Yesterday I made my first tenkara outing this fall, I wanted to enjoy the nice weather that was expected.
I arrived a little before 8 a.m and I barely had the time to deploy my rod and connect the line on it before the rain began. The uniformly grey sky had not let me consider anything else anyway.

I started fishing with a rod about which I will probably write soon: the Daiwa LT39 SC. I did cast a 3.5 level line and a #8 zenmai dou. The morning was rainy and very quiet as the catches did become regular before half past eleven when the weather finally began to unravel.

The first fishes to be active on food were perches. This pond has a large population of small perches and I did catch about three dozens quite easily.

When I fish for perch in stillwater I use a very simple technique that consists in letting the kebari sink to the bottom then I bring it back towards me by making the kebari sawtooth swim just above the bottom. In my experience of stillwater tenkara this jerking swim is particularly attractive for perch.
Meanwhile I was fishing these perches the weather improved and a light wind began to blow. I did have lunch observing a few trouts porpoise in the middle of the pond, inaccessible to fishermen. They seemed to have great times!

My lunch finished I changed my rod and the spot where I was in order to be better positioned at 45° to the wind direction in order to try my luck with the trouts. I had seen several shadows in front of me during my lunch between the bank and the wind rippled zone. 

It was much harder than with the perches! I did catch only three trouts in nearly two hours and lost two because of weak hook settings or their own fighting abilities. There was only one other angler on this pond and it was not easy for him either. I did stare at him from time to time and almost every time he was changing his fly. 

The wind increasing I decided to fish the only area of the pond sheltered from the wind even though I was sure that I would not catch any trout there. I fished in the most relaxed style, sitting on the ground and casting gently in font of me. Sheltered from the wind the atmosphere was fine and I had fun catching a bunch of roaches.

To catch a roach on tenkara my technique is simple. I cast my kebari and let it sink to the bottom then I bring it back towards me in a very slow and regular move; this is very simple and adapted to this species that has no aggressiveness. 

I finished the afternoon at the same spot taking long breaks to avoid creating a panic among the school of roaches I was targeting. It was a really nice moment, very peaceful.

In the end I did spend a very nice day. I had never caught so many fishes in one outing. I did meet the other angler on the parking lot when I left ; he did not seem to be in the same mood as me!