Spring’s swings.

Today, friends, I give you trout porn.  Not much other than trout porn. I’ve gotten blanked more than I’d like to admit, and had a couple spectacular days as well.

It’s a delicate time of year where I fish:  some rainbows are starting to dig redds and get their groove on, while others are tanked up in perfect swing runs, getting hormonally enraged and hungry.  Several days’ time can tip the balance, and suddenly they’re all spawning, and thus off-limits to any angler with a brain or heart, or indeed any consideration for something other than his fragile ego and attendant instagram feed.  As far as I can see, we’re tipping now; and in a few more days, they’ll have passed on wild genetics to a new generation.  Still a delicate time – again, if you’re not too concerned about grip-and-grins on your social media self-representation, you probably don’t want to poke too many malnourished post-spawners either.  (Mind the holes/runs above and below a redd – usually those contain the fish that didn’t want to hang out on their redd in the shallow water all day, in plain sight of every predator, but are spawners nonetheless.) (And by “mind”, I mean, “Don’t fish”.)

So let’s tie some flies, yeah?  Summer’s a half-step away, and in about two short months you’ll find cutties looking skyward for the first salmon flies and other early stones.  There are summer streamer ideas (and proven favorites) to be birthed from that vise, and while I’m thinking of it, summer steelhead are probably starting to turn homeward from Katmchatka or the Aleutians or wherever they’ve been.

Anyways.  On to the promised trout porn.  Retrospective winter steelhead and summer cutthroat writings to come.