Fishing Forum

Friday in southeast Idaho was sunny and relatively calm--a welcome break from the cloudy, windy weather we've been having, so I spent all day wading one of my favorite rivers.

The action was slow in most places, but in a few holes, the rainbows seemed to be in warm weather mode--they were rising with leaps, chasing down lures from many yards away, and hitting hard. The larger bucks were starting to show their spawn colors, with one already sporting a hooked jaw and another milting.

[url "http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/4619/022412fishotheday.jpg"]http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/4619/022412fishotheday.jpg[/url]

[url "http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/3663/022412alsoran.jpg"]http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/3663/022412alsoran.jpg[/url]

[url "http://img254.imageshack.us/img254/2808/022412hookjaw.jpg"]http://img254.imageshack.us/img254/2808/022412hookjaw.jpg[/url]

This seems earlier than normal. Could it be that we are in for an early spring? I haven't paid much attention to this sort of thing in the past, but I was under the impression that rainbows generally didn't start spawning until mid-March.

What say our resident ichthyologists?

TT
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Good lookin out! I sure hope so, I am ready to get the boat out and start hammering away, no hard deck for this kid.
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Those are some great looking fishing. Great color too. Thanks for the report. You must be a little further south than I am. I went out hoping for no wind yesterday since it was so sunny but It was still going 15 most of the time with pretty consistent gusts of 25 mph. No ice on the guides but it made it prettty cold with the wind chill. This morning it's blowing almost 50 mph and has been snowing. I think winter still wants to hang around for a while [cool].
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Like the other guys have all mentioned, very nice looking fish. Envious am I! I am sure hoping for an early spring bite. Thanks for sharing and stoking my fire!

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Thanks, Shane. Today's weather isn't fit for driving, let alone fishing.

I live in Poky and had to drive a little ways to reach yesterday's fishing spot. I don't think the air temperature ever rose above 32 degrees, but because the sun was shining and the wind wasn't blowing, it didn't feel very cold.

I was just curious if the trout's behavior I've witnessed the past couple of weeks is an indication of a short winter/early spring or if it's unrelated. I spoke with a flyfisherman around lunchtime and he said many river rainbows usually start spawning about now, so I suppose our fishy friends aren't predicting anything. /shrug

By the way, I checked out your blog. Wonderful pictures. I especially loved those cutts.
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Those are some really nice looking fish. I caught some rainbows down in Cache Valley yesterday that were fat with eggs. I also caught a couple that were long and skinny which makes me wonder if some of them have already done the deed down here. I would love an early spring, but the forecast for the next two weeks looks pretty gross.
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It sure would be nice if it would warm up a little earlier than usual. With that said, I have had one heck of an ice fishing season. I am ready for some open water. I have caught a lot of rainbows on the Henry's Fork in April and they are usually spawned out by then so it happens sometime between now and then I would guess. Thanks for checking out my blog. Hopefully I will have some open water success to report on in the near future.
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Wow, nice healthy fish! I think the rainbows start regularly sometime soon. I know that they spawn just before the cutts. It probably all depends on things like the water temp but I don't really know for sure what the triggers are.

So far it really hasn't been a hard winter. Which is probably why winter is blowing in and reminding us that it is still here.
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[quote gstott]I also caught a couple that were long and skinny which makes me wonder if some of them have already done the deed[/quote]
The local flyfisherman with whom I spoke yesterday explained to me that rainbows generally start spawning in late February and continue through March and into April. He even said some rainbows will spawn in the fall and attributed the staggered spawning behavior to many of the fish being raised in hatcheries. Don't know if it's true but it made sense.

[quote flyfishingfool]It sure would be nice if it would warm up a little earlier than usual. With that said, I have had one heck of an ice fishing season.[/quote]
I told myself last fall that I'd give ice fishing a try this winter, yet I never got around to it. I read some of your blog posts and was surprised that, not only were you catching plenty of fish, some were hitting hard.

I mentioned Friday being a relatively slow day for me on the river. I wound up landing 52 trout, but most of them came from three places where the fish were very active and aggressive. Elsewhere, I'd be lucky to pull one or two out of a hole, or they'd only chase, knock or sip my lure instead of inhaling it.

I wormed a couple of holes and the takes were so casual I could hardly tell the fish were there, even with a fairly tight line. I figured that must be what ice fishing is like, but I see from your blog that I was much mistaken.
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52 trout sounds pretty dang good for February to me! [] I kind of found the same thing of the fish really being concentrated in a couple of places. I had a good 20 fish on out one little 8-10' section of a run.

I have heard that too about fall spawners from the hatcheries. The Provo River above Deer Creek Reservoir in Utah is notorious for it's run of fall spawn rainbows. In any case, I tied up some gummy eggs yesterday for the next time I hit the stream.
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True, there are some rainbows that spawn in fall, I was amazed when I found this out firsthand. Several years back, I had taken my spinning rod along on a pheasant hunt. It was a bluebird November day we couldn't rustle up any pheasants so I headed for the AF resivoir near Springfield. I wound up landing a 19" rainbow that was spilling eggs from it's posterior. Now I am a believer in the fall spawn rainbows.

JP
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great looking fish [cool]
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[quote gstott]52 trout sounds pretty dang good for February to me! [] I kind of found the same thing of the fish really being concentrated in a couple of places. I had a good 20 fish on out one little 8-10' section of a run.[/quote]
Thanks, Greg. I don't typically count my catch (on the better days at this location, I doubt I'd be able to!). I only did so the other day as an experiment. More curiosity than anything, I suppose.

I enjoyed reading about that hot stretch of water you fished. Looks like a pretty decent whitefish, too. I see you are very good at keeping count. That's an amazing haul--2100 fish in one year averages out to nearly six fish per day!
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Thanks! I guess it's a bit of a compulsion for me to keep track. I ended up buying one of those golf clickers so I just click it every time I catch a fish. I swear my memory isn't as good as it used to be, so the clicker was a good purchase. I wasn't very good about keeping up my blog last year, but maybe I'll do a 2011 highlight post soon.

That's really an impressive stretch of stream you've found. Those are some very hefty bows with gorgeous colors. Somewhere near Pocatello, hmm. I'm very curious.
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I can see that I really need to try some more waters closer to Pocatello. I think I am stuck in a rut.
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If you want to try something new and be a little spontaneous, get a spinner from a board game like twister. Label it N,W,S,E and line it up and give it a spin. Pull out a map and and use the direction of the spinner to determine which way to go from your place. Try to keep it true to the angle of the spinner. Draw a line on the map and start looking for streams, rivers, creeks, lakes, what ever is along that line. Pick a spot and go. Try different spots each time the spinner lines up in the same place more than once.
I have done this many times and had fun seeing places I had never been before. Not always the best fishing, but I was surprised many times. I also did this for weekend camping trips.
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What a fun idea! I will give that a try, as soon as the weather decides to be nice again. Thanks!
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I think the title of this thread may have jinxed us!

Looks like it reminded winter to show up!
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Hah! This weather had already been forecast when this thread was created.

Besides, I am not a groundhog.
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True that! Just giving you some jazz.
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