Spring is here

The weather has been upper 40's for the last week with sunshine. I drive with my window down when I go to lunch at noon. I believe Denver has been near record highs. I like the nice weather, but I'm not ready to see the end of winter yet. We can have snow all the way to May, so I don't really think the snow is over yet.

We didn't get to ski this weekend, but Isaac, Boyd and myself went fishing on Sunday while Heather worked and Olivia went to a friends house to play. We just went behind the apartments and fished the Eagle River for about an hour. I wasn't sure how we would do, but I rigged spinning rods with 1/8 oz. Kastmasters. Isaac had a little trouble with the moving water, but he did a good job casting. His rod's line is too heavy for trout in these rivers, but I had a Micro 6lb line on my set up. It is the same set up I used for trout fishing in Arkansas's White and Norfork River. I ended up catching two beautiful Brown Trout around 14" and 15" long. They weren't very big but they have incredible color. They were my first Colorado Browns. Isaac and Boyd each netted one of the fish.

Since we did OK on Sunday and the time change gives more evening daylight, I decided to go again today. Isaac, Olivia and Boyd all went with me. Isaac was the only one fishing, but he was using an even cheaper rod and reel since the screw that holds the handle on his other reel was lost during Sunday's trip. I caught one small brown on the second cast, which exited Boyd and Olivia quite a bit. I actually thought it was better than the two from Sunday when he hit and started to fight, but that didn't last too long.

We were fishing the same deep section of the far shore that we fished Sunday. The fish seem to want the lure to be moving fairly slow. I had several short hits that I couldn't hook. Isaac was trying to fish the lure like I told him, but the rocks were too much for him. While I was busy breaking off his second lure, I handed him my rod that I had just cast and told him to reel it in slow. He hadn't had it in his hand more than 10 seconds when he hooked a fish. He was very exited to catch one. It was another Brown and a pretty good fish.

After Isaac caught the fish he went to playing behind me in the rocks with Boyd and Olivia. I had at least 6 or more hits, and even watched several Browns chase the lure and repeatedly strike at it. But, they were striking short and I couldn't get a hook in them. None of them were any bigger than the one Isaac caught. I was fishing a rainbow trout colored Kastmaster (chrome on the back) by casting it slightly upstream and slowly reeling it in as the moving water moved it downstream. I think this spring and summer I'm going to give flyfishing a try. I never thought I would want to flyfish, but there are so many guys doing it that it's hard to not want to give it a try. I'll also be buying Isaac an actual spinning rod and reel of his own.

I got a few pictures of today's fish. The first is the small Brown I caught and the second two are of Isaac holding the fish he caught. His hands were cold holding the fish, so he didn't smile. You can see some of the color even though he is covering most of it up.