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set out with three buddies today for the season opener... started the day off at a smaller river to see if we could find any stockers.
http://www.tombeauchamp.com/misc/fis...ener%20(1).jpg
finished off our coffees (bagels, no donuts, gotta stay mobile haha) and were in the water for the 8 am start. the sections with good road access were absolutely packed with fishermen but we only had to walk 2 minutes to have the rest of the river to ourselves. unfortunately it seemed last night's cold front really put off this morning's bite, and we didn't get even a nibble in two hours. none of the other fishermen that we talked to had caught anything either. headed back to the trucks and decided to change things up. on the way out we did see one guy with a decent stringer hung off his tailgate, but nobody else.

headed over to a lake, where again plenty of people at the sections with good road access, but very few people elsewhere. around 11 am, i finally hooked up with our first fish of the day, which turned out to be a nice rainbow. it put up a good fight and was the first trout the 5' ultralight st croix i picked up this week has hooked into so i was pretty pleased
http://www.tombeauchamp.com/misc/fis...ener%20(2).jpg

we worked our way around different parts of the shoreline without any more luck until around noon, when the action really picked up. here's sigma1073 with his first fish of the day, another nice rainbow
http://www.tombeauchamp.com/misc/fis...ener%20(3).jpg

my next fish was a nice hook jaw male rainbow
http://www.tombeauchamp.com/misc/fis...ener%20(4).jpg

and then another smaller, but still very decent rainbow
http://www.tombeauchamp.com/misc/fis...ener%20(5).jpg

real nice colors on this rainbow for mike (starting to see a pattern?)
http://www.tombeauchamp.com/misc/fis...ener%20(6).jpg

one more
http://www.tombeauchamp.com/misc/fis...ener%20(7).jpg

last one wearing a nice full set of fins
http://www.tombeauchamp.com/misc/fis...ener%20(8).jpg

so yeah, all big rainbows sure put a bend in our rods and smiles on our faces. no browns, no brookies, no cookie cutter rainbows... we didn't even see any little stocker trout caught by anybody, but this lake did get them. i think the weather just had the smaller fish not feeding today. at least some (maybe all?) of these fish we did catch were holdovers from earlier stockings. by 2:15 the wind was blowing something fierce, casting into it became impossible and we called it a day, stopped by the deli and headed home. i'd post a picture of the sandwiches, but YOU KNOW hahahaha.

how'd everybody else make out today?