We’re still freezing our butts off up here in Vermont, even if the snow is mostly gone, but it’s heartening to know that the trout opener is less than two weeks away. Here’s a short video on how the New Jersey Department of Fish & Wildlife is getting ready for their Opening Day by stocking local rivers. There are some breeder fish in the mix, and you can see a serious hog in the stocking net at one point. Catching that big girl would certainly be a great start to any fishing season.
Madison.com offers a review of the new John Galligan mystery, The Wind Knot, featuring a “trout bum detective” named Ned “Dog” Oglivie. This is Galligan’s fourth “trout bum” mystery, and it revolves around a “swollen and purple-bruised [body], with fly line wrapped tightly around his neck.” If you like mysteries and fly fishing, this could be the book for you.
The Miramichi River in New Brunswick is is among a handful of North American Atlantic salmon rivers who’s very name evokes wehispers of awe from fly fishers. Steeped in history and still enjoying world-class runs of the Fish of Kings, the Miramichi is on the “bucket list” of anyone who wants to catch a wild Atlantic. Unfurtunately (speaking of buckets), the river is now experience the effects of “bucket biologists” who felt the need to introduce smallmouth bass into the river system. As this article from the Times & Transcript makes clear, this is serious business: “From experience in other jurisdictions, it is now known that if small-mouth bass become established in salmon nursery rivers, they are very capable of outcompeting the native salmon population and could seriously challenge their very existence.”
Here’s a fun tidbit from the July 1934 issue of Modern Mechanix magazine, which tells the story of a family in Salt Lake City that kept a pet rainbow trout in a tank for more than 16 years. “Jumbo” grew to four pounds and enjoyed being scratched by his owners..
Here are a couple of great reads from opposite sides of the country. First up is a story in the Utica (NY) Observer & Dispatch about a 15-year-old Bosnian boy named Isak Kulalic whose family moved to Upstate New York when he was 2. He has grown into a maniacal fisherman who now spends up to 100 days per year on the water, driven to locations as diverse as the Salmon River and Chesapeake Bay by his doting mom. He recently gave a seminar on fly-fishing for steelhead and salmon at a fly-tying symposium. Far away, on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, Jeffrey P. Mayor floats the Sol Duc River with guide Justin Tenzler. He writes about his experience on TDN.com, offering a classic story of failure followed by redemption and capturing the joys and frustration of a day on the river.
