Spent a day on the streams with Scott, Tom, and Josiah.  Winter joined us as the fifth guest until around 2 PM.  It was 22 degrees starting out in the morning and really didn’t get comfortable until the afternoon.  You could almost feel the ice on the lake hit you with the breeze. 

We fished a pile of fish on a smaller trib in the morning and had just a few that took jigs, nymphs, and single eggs.  We moved up high on a larger trib for the remainder of the day and pulled out a few more nice fish on jigs and single eggs again.  The fish that we could see early in the day would chase jigs but rarely commit to biting.  Even the smallest of offerings drifted perfectly in the pack were not getting much attention.  Moving to a deeper hole with more color proved more productive.

Josiah landed a 29″ hen that was a real horse and put up the best fight I’ve seen this spring.  It may have been a true Spring run fish.  Mostly silver and clean of any marks.  With the high water we had after the melt it would be no surprise that a Springer would have gone up as high as she did. 

The warmer temps that are forecasted will tell the story on what happens this Spring with any fresh run fish.   We are likely to get a few but probably not a huge wave of fish.  I would expect many older fish to remain in the streams until the regular Trout opener in a few weeks. 

Besides the nice fish Josiah landed the other highlight was another BIGTIME lunch provided by Scott.  He actually left for the truck and told us he’d call us when lunch was ready.  45 minutes later  he called and had basically setup his own kitchen around his truck!  On the menu:  Chicken Chili- the best I’ve ever had, Shrimp and Crawdads, Walleye with onions and peppers, and Walleye breaded and fried in a skillet.  I owe an extreme debt of gratitude for this lunch that not only was the best I’ve ever eaten streamside, but easily one of the best I’ve ever had period!  Eating this lunch when it was still in the 30′s with a numbing breeze from the lake is something I’ll be talking about for years to come.  This was easily a $50 a plate restaurant dinner and I’m used to chowing down a few granola bars and some almonds in a day of fishing.  In over 10 years I’ve spent thousands of hours on the streams of Erie.  The 1 hour I spent eating with these gentlemen was one of the finest as were the 8 we spent fishing.  Here’s a few pics I was able to get with my camera today.