Figuring Out The Key To A Successful Day

Sometimes a good quality fishing day takes going through each learned possibility until you hit the right combination.  This year though,  it has been a bit harder than having the luxury of making a good guess.

During the past month, I have been fishing one of our spring run landlocked salmon rivers.  Twice a year these fish will move out of the lakes, and up the tributaries, making runs for different reasons.  In the spring they are targeting spawning fishes eggs and roe.  They also will feed on the smelt that are spawning.  In the fall they make their own spawning run.  This can be exciting fishing and I wait in heightened anticipation for these brief days of plenty.

This year has proven to be one that has my thirty seven years of spring river experience a bit mystified. I would have thought by now that we would be deep into the season.  Yet a mere trickle of fish have moved up from the holding water in the lower river.  The suckers have made their way in good numbers yet the salmon and trout have hung back.  There is a mysterious lack of lake rainbows that should be spawning as well.

When things seem out of timing, I always look to nature for the reason.  Sure as can be, man can play a roll in a disruption of nature and with that possibility ruled out nature is the key.  It is not a matter of going through the fly box with proven winners or changing line or weight or anything we have power over.  You must look to a deeper reason.  You must understand and go to where the fish are comfortable by nature.

 Rainbow trout will make a spawning run when the water is approximately 42 degrees Fahrenheit.  Smelt will want to have the water over 39 degrees and according to my observation they wait until the water is in the 45 degree range.

What does this have to do with it?

As most of us will agree, winter just does not want to flip over to spring this year.  The nights have been cold and the days moderate at best.  There was a good quantity of ice and snow and everything has been moved back.  The river, I have been fishing, has just hit 44 degrees for a day time high and is dipping back each night.  I expect things will change as they always do according to this simple fact of science.  Everything revolves around the food source for the young that are to be born and the perfect temperature that is needed must be met for nature to allow the progression to begin. Last year was equally as strange as the fishing started a month earlier.

The river is high, the comfort zone has been met and I expect to be into some great fishing in New England over the next four weeks. 

The fish know when it is right............I'm still learning!

William