First outing of 2010

With temperatures rising above freezing for the first time all year (and much longer than that) I did some rearranging of my work schedule and hit the water for the first time in 2010. I got on the water at about 10:00 and the sun was already out, by 11:30 I had already stripped a layer and ditched the gloves. With the sun beating down, it might just as well have been summer.

By noon I stumbled upon a pod of several hundred fish. Note: winter fishing is strange, all the fish pile up in huge slack-water pools where you would never find them any other time of the year. It makes catching fish really easy and boring. I took a number of fish from this first pod, and moved on. I soon found another area with a bunch of fish, but they were more difficult to cast to. After fumbling around there, I doubled back to the spot I was first at. When I got there, two dudes from the MNDNR were standing nuts-deep in the hole where all the fish used to be, great. I spent the rest of the day trudging through knee-deep snow and looking for fish. Next time out, I'll have a handful of spots where fish are likely to be holding-nice to have some options.
One large pod of fish was holding along the bend at the top of the photo.

First trout of 2010. Nothing noteable about it-or any of the other fish I landed.