Febuary Mad River Brown Trout

Cold and shitty weather, always a good day to try your luck at some trout fishing. I don't know why, but it seems if you suffer with the cold, rain and snow, then the fishing "Gods" let you get some fish.(read trout!)

That's exactly what was going on this last Saturday, Feb. 5th, 2011. The temps sat between 28 and 32 degrees that day. With a slight drizzle to start the day at 8am. Then sleet, followed by snow, and yes, some good strong wind just to make sure Old Man winter was happy.

We finally got our butts moving and in the car at about 9am with the intent on heading over to the "Great Miami" river to catch something for a mid-winter fish fry. We thought we might be able to get on some sauger, saugeye, or maybe walleye. But to my disappointment, no such luck.....it's kinda hard to cast at a big river, an urban fishery in Downtown Dayton, Ohio when you know that the Mad river is right around the corner. That at first is not a big deal because most rivers around here are about the same, but that's not true about the "Mad", because the "Mad" holds some nice Brown Trout, at least in its upper reaches.

So after some time trying to locate some catchable fish in the "Great Miami", my good fishing pal, Marshall "BMW" Hamden, came up with a great idea and said "Let's get outta this place and find us some trout". Now it is my belief that because it was snowing, a lot, and mighty miserable, my friends brain was able to come up with this magnificent idea. Of course, I agreed, and why wouldn't I? It would have been absolutely adsurd for me to say anything else except " Good Fucking idea". Or something of that effect.

So, we hopped in the "Trout Mobile" and headed north towards West Liberty, and that River that will not release it's hold on us. Of course it really started snowing at this point, the roads became bad the farther north we traveled, of course we had to stop off at "Wally World", to pick up so odds and ends. This is always the way it goes, there always has to be a stop along the way, at least for us. I have always wondered if this was the case for others as well. But we can't seem to ever just get in the car and head to our destination. That would be way to simple. But in the end it never really matters, it is just part of it. Part of the process, of getting were we need to be, I think.

.....we stopped in West Liberty, Ohio, after fishing a few other parts of the river on the way. This is were it started to come together for us. We came to a hole in the river. The only real winter hole we had seen on the river that day. This is were we started to get some action, nothing good but Marshall pulled a small brown up and before he could get it, it came off the line and right back in the water. Now I could see that this was frusterating for him and I did what any good fishing partner would do and I laughed and snickered a bit.....

After this hole we waded our way up the river to Lions Park, where once again we came to a good whole, where he again lost what he thought was another Trout. Now I had been taking it easy and had not been fishing much the last 300 yards or so, but I anounced "Ok, enough messing around let me in there" were upon my first cast in the whole I pulled out a nice Mard River Brown Trout. Which might have been his fish, or maybe not,. Not to matter, there were more in there and he also pulled one from that very hole...

...will finish the story and add more pics in the next article in a day or so. ....Until then, Go FIsh!!