April 1st Trip

My April 1st trip is a tradition I started when I moved to Wyoming.  It is a good day to set the trip clock to and gauge how things are going to shake out for the Spring.  This year we are already well underway with the record high temps melting the ice and getting the season started early.

The winds have been howling and I thought my classic April 1st tradition might not happen this year with the 50 mph gusts.  As early afternoon crept in, I decided to just brave it and go out where I could get the wind at my back.  It paid off as I managed to land three decent fish on the leech and hook up with a few more fighters as well.  The leech was the ticket tonight and the takes were hard hammering lightning strikes up the fly line.

One of the prettiest rainbows of the spring

Aggressive Rainbows

More lake resident rainbows.  Caught all males today and they were all fairly aggressive takes.  I was able to see the take from the last fish on the egg pattern as he cruised past me in the shallows.  Here are a couple of the better fish on the day.  Winds were pretty rough but I managed with quartering casts into it.

Still a dink by Willi standards

Male that turned on my egg and crushed it

Big Fish Willi

Met up with Willi and Steve this afternoon for a couple hours of action.  I found a lot of 12-16 inch fish today and had good action slow stripping buggers but Willi continued his big fish whispering streak of late with this fish while I was there to net and photograph for him.  It was nice to see these guys out doing their thing and I always pick up some good info on technique and patterns from Willi.  He always seems to have things dialed in perfectly.

Rainbows In Cruise Mode

An after work trip this evening paid off with some good action on rainbow trout actively searching the dam for food and spawning partners.  Leeches and buggers were taken with about equal frequency.  I was just dead drifting them under an indicator waiting for cruisers to stumble upon the fly.  Mostly 12-15 inch fish were found but I did get into one better male this evening.

Breakup Doldrums

Things are still opening up.  I met up with Eric for a couple hours and also hit some other lakes with just a small bit of open water.  I couldn't get much going today but at the end of the evening finally found some small rainbows that wanted to chase a bugger on a sinking line.  The fish just weren't active today.  Things should pick up as the ice continues to leave and the water warms a bit.

Eric working the ledges

Not much open to fish yet

Skunk busting stocker