Some people take the opposite view and don't understand why we would toss back a perfectly good fish. Nobody puts back the walleye and perch they catch on Lake Erie. Two responses: we have plenty of food in the RV so we don't need to fish for meat; trout fishing, for us, is about the sport of acquiring the knowledge and skill to catch a fish. Reading the water, selecting the appropriate fly, presenting the fly so that it appeals to the trout, keeping it on the hook (which, by the way, is barbless so release is easy) and handling it gently during release. After a really good round of golf, are you tempted to eat a Titleist or are you satisfied with the experience itself. Alright, maybe you're not all that satisfied. As hikers, Shirley and I appreciate that golf is a nice walk that has been ruined.
Getting to a trout stream often means driving a back country gravel road that may be almost as pot holed and rutted as a street in Toledo. Then, after donning our waders, it also may involve hiking back to a stream. So we get a twofer--a chance to catch beautiful trout and to take a little walk in the park.
Not possible for fish to hang out in water like this?
If you look closely, you might barely make out the trout in the lower center, taking shelter in the relatively quiet water behind a rock. That's why we drop a fly in the sheltered side of a rock.
This one is somewhat easier to see.
I thought I saw a trout rise at the edge of the weeds.
So Shirley showed me how to catch it. Very generous of her, don't you think?
Would you be really disappointed if you spent a couple hours following a winding stream through this valley and came up with nothing? Nah, we're not either.
A few years ago, greenback cutthroat trout were endangered but have made a comeback. Catch and release is part of the strategy for their recovery.
Speaking of endangered fish, Shirley caught this rare elkjaw trout.
Much of our fishing is done in national forests where open range means keeping an eye out for pedestrians in the roadway.
Sometimes the stream is just an easy walk from the road.
Sometimes it means figuring out how to get down there safely. And back out.
Soda Butte Creek in Yellowstone has been a favorite place to fish for years but more than once somebody else called dibs and then went stomping through the best holes.
And if you have heard the deep, bass rumble of a bull bison, you will appreciate that this fellow was not in a sharing mood.
The upper Salmon River near Stanley Idaho is a lovely place to fish.
For years, Shirley just tagged along and read a book while I fished. In 1999 she decided that was just not fair and took a fly fishing lesson in Durango, Colorado. She still insists on telling people she is "just a beginner." And I keep telling her that, after her first couple of thousand trout, she is not allowed to say that any more.
So, this is just a little brook trout she caught north of Durango. But catching it was still enough to put a smile on her face.
This is somewhat more typical of her results.
Probably just my imagination but the fish seems to be smiling because he knows he is going back.
This fox was trying to sneak up on ground squirrels. I don't think he was into catch and release.
I like to stand downstream from a beaver dam and cast into the deeper water behind it.
Shirley took this nice cutthroat in Pacific Creek.
Notice the red slashes under the jaw of the cutthroat trout that give it its name.
A mayfly is a favorite trouty lunch. Which makes mayfly patterns popular with fishers.
The art of fly fishing is knowing how to cast. The science is knowing where to put the fly. The joy of fly fishing is getting to do it in places like this. With someone like this. Yes, I know. I'm a lucky man.
