Opening Day – 2010

It started out typical of previous Opening Days – with Dave up and “at ’em” earlier than me.  He started his day be fishing some creeks and rivers and then onto Lake Eugenia, where he caught a few small brook (speckled) trout.

I later met Dave in the afternoon in Orangeville, and we decided to head over to Humber Springs and try our luck for some rainbow trout.  When we arrived, we were told that the fishing had been pretty darn good earlier in the day, but the fish seemed to have stopped taking.  Sure enough, after we set up our fly rods, we found that there was no action whatsoever for quite some time.

But it was still nice to be out on the water, and good to keep up a tradition with Dave where we have hardly missed an Opening Day together since about 1978.  There have been a few in there where emergencies or a major family commitment interfered with our plans, but not many.

I tried a variety of fly patterns with no luck at all, including wets, leech patterns, and after noticing some midge husks on the water, a variety of chironomid buzzer patterns.  But nothing.

Finally, after thinking it was going to be a useless afternoon and evening as far as catching fish, Dave, who had walked over to another part of the pond, called out to me.  When Dave does that, it usually means fish in the neighbourhood.  I scrambled over to where Dave was fishing, to hear him tell me that he had just had a fish on that had broke his fly off.

As well, there were fish rising nearby – appearing to be taking small minows that were swimming near the surface.

A few minutes later after a cast from the bank, Dave hooked and landed a nice rainbow trout of about a pound and a half:

David Moore and his Opening Day Rainbow Trout.

Me? Well, I tied on a fly that was given to me – no idea the name of it. I did get to feel the strike of a fish for the first time in months – in fact three times, I had a fish on but lost it.

As it got dark, the temperature cooled down and the fish seemed to take another break from their feeding.

It wasn’t the most successful Opening Day we’ve had, but after a long winter, just being out fishing is good no matter the number of fish caught or seen.