Winter Solstice
By Bob Randall on Saturday, December 22nd, 2018 in Fishing reports, No Comments
I went fishing at Bennett Spring State Park to celebrate the winter solstice yesterday. I managed to slice my finger open with a filet knife while rummaging around in my fishing gear box. Yes, it’s catch and release season but I store the knife there and it had slipped out of it’s sheath. Another fisherman told me I ought to have the cut looked at. I said not until the siren blew indicating that fishing was over. I eventually stopped the bleeding but had to fish differently than normal so I wouldn’t get the bulky dressing wet. Even with extra care, I had to leave the stream once to stop the bleeding and get a fresh dressing. Tying knots was difficult. I fished the hatchery outflow stream where it enters the spring creek so that I could use a short, flipping motion without adjusting the line length. Since I knew they were feeding the fish in the hatchery, and now being in a foul mood, I tied on a fly the same color and size as the food pellets. That’s a practice I call cheating when someone else does it. When I do it, I call it matching the hatch. Finally, in a better mood, I began to fumble around with other flies, only losing two to knot failure. I had success with the pellet, a grey scud, a grey sowbug, a black midge, and a small brown nymphy looking thing that I had considered a mistake at the tying table. I stopped counting at 30 fish and must have caught 50 total.