Hey Hall of Fame family,
It is officially April, and I feel like spring is finally upon us. In our last blog post, I detailed my struggles and inability to catch any fish down in Biloxi, Mississippi. It was pretty brutal after the 11th hour on the water without a single bite. Check it out!
My 27th birthday was last week, and my wife Lauren and I took the day off work to get some trout fishing done. We chose to fish the closest trout park to our house, as we only planned to spend about 4 hours fishing. We arrived by 8 am, got our tags by 8:15, and were fishing by 8:30. The plan was to start fishing at the spring and work downstream towards the river. I started by throwing a salt and pepper rooster tail on my BFS setup, and Lauren was throwing a white rooster tail on a spinning rod. The water was fairly shallow and the stream was chock-full of grass. Within the first 30 minutes of fishing, I had a fish on. There was a school of brown trout in the middle of some fast current, and I'd had a couple strikes before I finally connected. It was a small brown trout, but I was happy since I don't catch many of those. We stayed up near the top of the spring for a little while longer with no further luck. We then decided to move downstream, in search of new holes to fish. Unfortunately in the new spot, Lauren got snagged I got a nasty backlash in my BFS reel due to catching a bush on my backcast, so it was back to the truck.
I opted for my fly rod with a silver jig already tied on, as I tied a chartreuse rooster tail on Lauren's rod. We then headed for the main outfall area. This spot is usually loaded with fish, and we caught a bunch of them in this exact spot in early January. I quickly caught my second trout of the day (a rainbow), and Lauren lost the first fish she had on. We didn't have any more bites in this area, but watched a young man pull trout after trout out with a piece of white bread on a small circle hook.
By this point, it was around 10 am. I'd caught 2 fish and Lauren nothing. I could tell she was getting discouraged, as that kid was outfishing us right in front of us. I knew we had to do something. I ran back to the tag office, but they did not have bread in stock. I figured live nightcrawlers would be the next best thing. I tied on the smallest jigheads I had with me, and even scavenged up a couple small bobbers from the bottom of my backpack. It wasn't long after that before Lauren and I were both catching fish. Slightly downstream from the outfall, Lauren found a school of rockbass and sunfish, catching them one after another. It was actually her first time ever catching rockbass. This was interesting to me, as I've never seen the rockbass or sunfish that far up the spring. We were there to catch trout though, and decided to head back up to where we initially started.
In the next two hours, Lauren and I both caught our limit of trout, all rainbows and all on nightcrawlers except my first two. I filleted our catch at the cleaning station, and was quite satisfied with the amount of meat we took home. It was kind of a bummer to be on the road heading home by 1 pm, since I knew we'd still be catching fish if we didn't have to leave. Nonetheless, it was an excellent morning spent with my lovely wife, and I wouldn't have wanted to spend the morning of my birthday any other way.
Thanks for reading, and as always, tight lines!
Erik Hoffman, Hall of Fame Outdoor Co