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Finally, towards the end of last week, temperatures climbed enough for the last icy holdout to melt away. I decided to give it a go, yesterday afternoon. It is one of the closest and most reliable spots to catch fish near me. Even when the action is slow, I have never been skunked....and Little Firehole can always hold a surprise catch....like last November, when I caught my first cutthroat trout from there.
But it was no surprise that I fished for an hour, before getting my first bite yesterday. It felt like a lake trout, not much of a thump, and pulling drag pretty steadily, but then the fish jumped. It was pretty far off the shoreline, and from here it looked a bit like a rainbow. It just didn't fight like one. As it came in, I could see the rusty red spots on it's body, and I was wondering what it could be.
Well....it was a brown trout. I have learned that browns don't always look like the picture perfect ones I am used to seeing in California. I caught a brown of Big Sandy last fall that I almost mistook for some sort of weird rainbow. I ended up dubbing it a brownbow. This fish that I caught yesterday, exhibited the same pale body, but had reddish spots all over him I dubbed him a "strawberry brownie". He was long, lean....maybe a little TOO lean. It must have been a hard winter for him. Anyway, he weighed in at 3.31 pounds, but seemed like he should have weighed double that, if he'd had a good winter.
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After releasing Mr. Brownie back into the water, I managed to catch 3 more small rainbow trout and one small lake trout. No trophy size fish during that session, but a respectable day on the shoreline.
Looking for a couple more days of good fishing before another cold front(and hopefully, the last one) comes through for the season. Then summer weather should start to creep in, and it will be time to head to the Uinta mountains for some brookies, tiger trout and grayling.