Winter Must be Tough on the Wild Ones

Here in the northeast, it's been a very snowy winter thus far. For the past few days, the temps have been in the single digits and at nighttime, well below zero. After awhile, it starts to get to you.

I haven't fished in about a month now. The days are short and cold. The fish are lethargic and sometimes it seems hardly worth the frozen fingers and toes. The fishing on the Farmington has been very off compared to last winter. Even my friends who have fished it and are very good fisherman have been doing poorly. Days like these make you long for the warmth of spring, but it is still a long time from now.

So, today I decided to try to pull myself out of my mid-winter malaise and went for a hike along a couple of my favorite local brook trout streams. One of these brooks gets stocked in early spring, but if you do a little hiking and wading, you can get into some very pretty wild fish. I didn't expect to find much open water, but I did find it in spots. Even hearing the sound of running water on a cold day like today makes you want to close your eyes and daydream about warmer days when the brookies will race up and smash a dry fly.

Making it through the winter must be tough on these little guys. Every day is a fight to survive and it makes me respect them even more. When I hold them in my hand this spring, I will appreciate their beauty, then set them free.

Here are some photos from today: