Memorial Day Fishing

Having stocked the river only a bit over a week ago, it is not surprising to find willing trout in a short amount of time. But the first one was a first for me--a huge male brook char. Really huge but certainly a stocked fish. First for being huge--huge for me at 15" and heavy. I've caught plenty of 13" stocked char. But nothing this big, with a kype-jaw.

Look at that mouth!

That was a pleasant 45 minutes of fishing.

Again a few days later on Saturday, I went out for an hour and had two good takes but lost both fish. It was a very nice stretch of water--the kind that just brings back my memories of fishing with my father as a kid. If you put 1300 trout into a 4 mile stream, you will still have about a thousand new fish there a week later.

Later I went to a slow stretch farther downriver, where I've never caught anything. I was streamer fishing, trying to find out if a pickerel would come racing out from the weedy bank, or maybe a spawning yellow perch, or even a fallfish. I've caught all three on a section lower down, quite sizable ones. After about a half hour of nothing, suddenly there was a swirl. Aha! Someone is in here!

I immediately re-tied to a traditional gray ghost--a favorite of perch. And after a few casts I added a splitshot as nothing would come up to it.

Two casts in I had a fish--but not a perch. It was a sizeable brook char--but only 1/3 the weight of the big one.

It had the tell-tale ragged lower caudal fin of a stocked trout. But it was very colorful in a way that matches the water. I took it home and cooked it up, but it had pink-orange meat. Perhaps it was a holdover from a year ago. It was in the lower section that hasn't been stocked since opening day (wasn't stocked a week ago).

This leads me to two questions.
1. How long does it take for a worn caudal fin to regrow?
2. Stocked trout would probably become orange in flesh after a time, if eating wild food. I'm sure this varies considerably based on local conditions.

Part of the fish tasted exactly like the smell of the river. But the meat closer to the spine in the "back" meat did not.