Trip Report: Miserable Trout

Today marks the beginning of the regular trout fishing season here in southeastern Minnesota. Despite getting around .5 inches of rain overnight, continuing freezing rain/ice, 40mph winds, and temps in the high 20's I decided to go for it. I headed to one of the few streams that would be fishable today and found conditions much clearer than I expected. I think that freezing temps overnight and freezing rain stopped or slowed any runoff that the rain would have caused.

 Fish ate the San Juan worm trailed behind an orange scud. The scud enticed one small brookie. I hoped to head upstream a ways where the brookies become more prevalent but after about 45 minutes in the pounding winds I was ready to call it a day.

In that time I landed around a half dozen trout, all browns except for the little brookie. I missed the hook set on a few too. The three weight handled pretty well even in such strong winds but I stayed low to the ground and fished with the wind to my back most of the time. Mostly roll casts! I hope to get out again soon. If the winds die down I have a few spots in mind to check out tomorrow.