From Famine to Feast

Today, I made my annual pilgrimage to fish for Golden Trout in Rhode Island. I went to the same lake I have gone to the last five years. I got there ridiculously early leaving my house at 4:30 am. My hope was to catch a bunch of trout in three hours and be out of there by 8:30 when the crowds start to pour in. After that I planned on going birding near by.

Not so fast! In those three hours, I had precisely one hook up. My friends that I went with did no better. There were about thirty people fishing. Seventy percent were using Powerbait, and I saw less than a dozen fish caught in those three hours (including only three in the last hour I was there).  Usually, in that time, I'd probably see over one hundred fish caught and I'd have a dozen of them.

We decided to try another pond fifteen minutes down the road. None of us had ever been there before. At 9 am, I was afraid there wouldn't be any room for us. Luckily, when we pulled into the parking area, there was only five cars. We found a spot and started fishing. At first fishing was slow for us, but we did see some fish caught so that was a good sign.

After 45 minutes the fish moved into my general area (I moved away from my friends). I hooked seven fish landing four in less than fifteen minutes. From there, fishing was very good. I'd get at least a hit every few casts. My friends also had fish in front of them at that point and we all caught fish. I don't know how many but they caught a whole bunch

After ninety minutes of this, I caught enough and started to share the wealth. I would cast for my friend's daughter and she would reel it in landing two Golden's. Then when she started using her own pole, I took my casting bubble/fly off my rod and gave it to a couple polite, respectful teenagers (voting age brother and sister) who weren't catching anything.  At that point I watched people catch fish.

All in all, after what looked like a dud of a day turned out really good.

Zach captured this image this morning