I hit the trail leaving my prairie home about the break of day. On the trail down I was privileged to see an abundance of wildlife busy being wild. I saw rabbits scurrying across the road and coyotes no doubt giving chase, red tail hawks perched on high lines reconnoitering the landscape, and a rather large family of deer leaping a fence line one after another with the precision, beauty, and grace of a synchronized swim team. It was a good trail drive down this morning.
Arriving at Scotty's, I took in the morning announcing itself in full bright color through the huge orange orb in the sky.
I decided to fish the south wilderness area today better known as the Landrum Wilderness Area. My first stop was Coyote Pass Falls and here I plopped an olive wooly bugger into a pocket and soon a bow would take my offering. It was at this moment my amazing fishing day would begin.
The next ten bows that I captured all would go two pounds or better and I captured them all from the same pocket of water. Never, in my almost thirty years of fishing have I ever had trout to fight like these chaps. They were magnificent!
I put all the fish back and it wasn't long until two bait casting anglers came to the pool I was fishing and these boys looked hungry so I gave them the water. They quickly took four nice bows from the pocket. I moved upstream to the Cove.
At the cove I took two bows in rather fast fashion and hooked one I never turned but then the action just died. It wasn't long until I saw four other casters of fur and feather and they also were getting into fish here and there. Here and there was where the bows were...they were positioned, lying in wait in the countless pockets of the south wilderness.
David with the wildlife department drove up performing part of his daily duties so I quit fishing to chat with him. David has been with the department a long time and is a fixture at Blue River.
I continued on after talking with David and each placed I fished thereafter I would connect with a quality two pound bow. Of all the fish I caught today only four would measure less than fifteen inches. It was an amazing thing. These bows were fat, had shoulders and were beautifully colored plus battle worthy.
About mid-morning I quit fishing for bows and started searching for bass to see if the bass activity is coming on. It is...to a degree. I captured three small spotted bass but no smallies. I think perhaps in three weeks or so we should see some good bass action, particularly if this warm weather continues.
I ventured out into the Scatters to the big falls in search of the bass and the flow of water over Big Falls was still pretty good. But, there are a lot of braids and forks that have no flow at all right now. We really need some rain.
On my way out I noticed that Desperado Springs is bone dry and probably has been for sometime and this fact is quite disheartening. Desperado Springs is one of the more prolific springs on Blue River.
I carried a trash bag today as part of my "spring cleaning" effort on Blue. I kind of like picking up trash for some reason. Really wish I didn't have to pick up trash, but figure it's always going to be there. Studying trash can tell you a lot about humankind. Here I can see there has been some spin fishermen, bait casters, harvesters of fish, someone that needed an energy boost, someone that snuck a beer into the walk-in and someone that was just simply thirsty. I recently said I don't discriminate against any fishing discipline and I don't, but I can certainly chastise all disciplines for trashing the river. If your an angler that trashes the river then I'd hate to see your home.
If I were to measure the quality of a fishing day by the quality of trout caught, their size and fight, then today's fishing was my best day ever fishing for the bows of Blue. If I'd had a stringer and strung six bows...then that stringer would've weighed twelve pounds...at least. It was remarkable.
Right now, the south wilderness is producing larger trout than the catch & release area.
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