The Kick is Good - originally published 12/10/10

My window of opportunity to fish this past weekend was small. For a period of time I wasn’t sure I would be wetting a line at all. By Thursday evening other plans and obligations had eaten up most of the weekend. Between a trip to a funeral home supporting a friend, Christmas shopping with my daughter and a family Christmas party, I felt like I was trying to hit a moving target. Or, for those of you who watch football on Sundays, which is what I am doing while writing this post, I felt like a kicker trying to split the uprights from fifty four yards out.

Friday evening I strategically laid out the weekend’s activities in my brain, looking for the opening I hoped was there. In my mind’s eye I saw the long snapper hike the ball. Realizing that Saturday morning was my one and only chance to chase trout, I mentioned to my wife, amid casual conversation over dinner, that there appeared to be some down time Saturday. The place holder snatched the ball from the air as I began my kicking routine. With my intentions to fish clearly laid out, I watched my wife’s facial expressions as she digested what I had just said. The kick was on its way. At one point, judging by her facial expressions, I was sure an objection was coming. I had pulled the kick. In a last ditch effort I mentioned that she too would be able to take advantage of the window we were afforded and take a friend out to lunch she had not seen in quite some time. Suddenly a cross wind blew. With a smile on her beautiful face, permission was granted. The kick was good!

The dilemma I faced while driving north was not the usual where to fish, there are only a handful of streams that are still open around these parts, but how to fish. I have found, through trial and error, that streamer fishing is normally better as far as producing fish than spinner fishing this time of year, at least for me. It might have something to do with streamers being able to be presented a little slower to lethargic trout, or it might be that I have more confidence in them when it is cold. Either way, I seem to be more successful using streamers in the winter.

Normally there would not be a dilemma, grab the fly rod, a box of streamers and head out. It was not that simple however since I broke my five weight fly rod the weekend before. With my five weight being MIA, my choice was, if I was going to fly fish, to try to turn over a weighted streamer in the wind with a three weight rod, or use my eight weight salmon rod. Confident that my efforts using the three weight would be futile, and catching smaller trout with my eight weight would feel like I was using a broom stick, I elected to use my ultra-light spinning gear. While, as I previously stated, this is not normally as productive, I felt it was my only real choice.

The day was dark. The sun, hidden behind thick grey winter clouds, seemed to give up in the face of an oncoming storm. The temperature gauge in the Silverado read 32 degrees before I stepped into the stream. As it turned out, the day would not get any warmer. In fact the temperature began to plummet as soon as I began fishing. To say the river was cold would be an understatement. Shelf ice, which started growing from the bank, already stretched farther into the river than I had imagined. It made an eerie sound as the current flowed under it. Occasionally a loud snap and crack would accompany a large piece of ice that broke off only to be swept away by the current. I must admit that at first I was a little unsettled and it took me a little time to get use to the new sounds.

Fishing slow and methodically it took over an hour before I saw my first fish. A small eight inch brown trout decided to follow my spinner for a closer look. Relieved just to see a trout, I pressed on. An hour later, with numb toes and fingers, I was ready to call it quits. The lack of trout certainly did not help either. As most fishermen do, I elected to make one last cast. A beautiful sixteen inch brown trout crushed my spinner and I was able to bring it to hand. The trout fought valiantly and put a nice bend in my St. Croix spinning rod. After the battle and a few pictures the trout was released back into the stream. No longer noticing the cold that had a grip on me moments before, I continued to fish for another hour. In the end I caught two brown trout; missed two more that I saw hit my spinner and three that followed it. Not a bad winter day of trout fishing.