Splake, Cutts, Tigers, and Bows

Saturday came as a huge relief. After one of the most hellish weeks I've been through in a while, a day of fishing was a much needed respite for my overworked and worn-out soul. I needed a day of fishing like a not-so-pretty high school girl needs a date to prom - in a bad way.

So, I called up my old reliable fishing friend Colby, loaded up the Camaro (its first ever fishing trip, as a matter of fact) and made the trek to a favorite old reservoir of mine, home to a variety of species of trout.

As always, descending the unstable boulders down to the waterline is as difficult as getting Phil Robertson to shave his beard. My shins are gonna bear some nice bruises for a while after this trip. 

Taking pictures like this always makes the day feel more epic. And despite the not-chilly look of the place, the wind picked up and clouds blocked the sun for most of the morning, which meant pretty frigid temps for our exposed hands as we jigged furiously in the hopes of some decent fish.

The first fish of the day actually came on a spoon, though - a pretty small, but feisty, splake. 

Splake, especially after ice-off, are so fun to catch. They fight as if they've got something to prove to you, and I hooked into a few decent 17 inchers today that fought harder than a dog when faced with a bath. 

The next fish didn't come for quite some time. Frustratingly enough, I missed about five bites in the same spot, and all of them felt like decent takes. I wasn't exactly in the greatest of moods after that (and not to mention I lost five or six jig heads in the rocks as well) but we kept on.

We rounded a point of the shore where the rocks dropped really deep, and the ice was only about 15 feet out. I had on a Gulp minnow, as did Colby, and we started tossing the jigs onto the ice, pulling them off, letting them drop, and then just reeling in some nicer splake. 

We caught a few bigger ones than that, though. Colby had a splake on bigger than anything I've ever seen in person. It was right in close to the bank, not more than five or so feet out, when it furiously threw the hook and swam off into the depths. Colby was understandably upset, and I thought he was going to throw his pole into the water he was so mad. 

I also had on a decent sized rainbow, probably in the 20 inch range, if my guessing game is correct. And let's face it, fisherman always guess the right size of trout! That rainbow threw the hook as well, though. 

I also reeled in a very, very, very pale cutthroat. This thing could have been in a fish version of Twilight it was so pale, but the crimson slashes and spotting pattern gave it away as a cutt.

That wasn't the only cutt I managed to land, though. After walking back around the lake to another ice shelf, I reeled in this beauty. An 18 inch, two pounder. Fought like a toad, jumped out of the water, caused a general ruckus, and got both Colby and I excited to keep on fishing. 

Maybe two whole casts after that fish, I had the jig sitting on the bottom for a minute. I popped it off the bottom really quick, and was watching it sink back down when I saw a pretty big dark shape dart out from the ice and go for the fish. 

So I did what any self-respecting fisherman would do - set the hook like this fish was life or death. Which, when trout are this nice, they actually are. 

I felt the fish just start fighting immediately, and it began tearing line off my reel like women spend money in clothing stores - faster than the eye could see! I didn't think the fish was particularly big at first. I supposed it was another Cutt of similar size to the one I already landed. But then, after probably a good five or six minutes, I had the fish close into shore and saw a really, really nice sized trout. After a slight tussle to get it out of the water, I was rewarded with this 21 inch, 3 pound beauty of a tiger trout. 

These are the days you live for as a fisherman. The action wasn't steady - it was inconsistent, and you definitely had to work to get the fish. But the spirit of fishing was there. We were out, had the lake to ourselves, and all the crap and goings-on of real life were left behind for 8 hours while the only thing that mattered was reeling in some trout.

Fishing is a release. It always has been and always will be for me. There's nothing that quite calms me down or helps me feel more connected to myself and to what really matters in the world than a good day of fishing. And I got to spend said day with a great friend, so I honestly couldn't have asked for anything better.