Opening Day!

    Today April 21, 2012 was the opening day of trout season in Connecticut.  Last year we were fishing in cold temps with hand warmers.  This year was a complete 180, i got a sun burn.  Images of people lining the banks in darkness to start fishing promptly at 6am is what opening day is all about.  Busting out the Weber Smokey Joe to make breakfast sandwiches is also a common opening day tradition.  Yesterday Jan D and i were discussing our plan of attack for this morning.   Jan went the extra mile and scouted the rivers out.  Currently, Connecticut is in drought conditions, and the water levels are low, really low.  Thankfully some much needed rain is on the way.

 
Because the river levels were very low and there is some rain looming in the near future we decided that we would not go trout fishing.  Jan had some guest at his house, and would not be able to go early, so a new plan was hatched.  I would splash the boat at 530 and run to the clam grounds and load up.  Then i would run back to the ramp and pick Jan up.  our reasoning was simple.  I could go score some clams before the rain and then catch bass.  Not that we are anti trout fishing but we can go next week with the hopes of the water levels being up a little. 
   I over slept.  There you go, I over slept.  I went into turbo mode to grab the boat and get going.  I figured i had time left.  For those of you who don't know, clamming is done at low tide, and the tide waits for no one.  I got down to the ramp at 6am to find everything blanketed in fog.  Thick fog is not a problem it just means i can not run hard through it.  After all this i did make the 4 mile run to the clam grounds with enough time to get what I needed.  The beds have recently been seeded and i got the score of a life time.  I worked the rake in one spot to fill my basket.  It was as if I was digging a hole filled with clams.  Mission accomplished.

Tiemco problems

   On to the fishing, it was sub-par.  What?  Currently there is a lot of bait around, but not that many fish.  I picked Jan up and we hit the water after stashing my clam rake and waders back in the truck.  We hit several spots and only had one fish to show for it.  I did lace into a nice fish only to have my Tiemco 800s open up on me, and this is the second occurence of this.  I was using an 8wt and the hook should not have opened.  Tiemco blows.  Back to Mustad for me.  The high light of the trip was a big school of herring feeding on what appeared to be small krill or something like it.  The pink creatures were microscopic and all over.  There were no bass under the herring.  After a full morning of fishing we ran home to rest.  When things happen here it is going to be spectacular with the variety of bait around.
   On another note, i apologize for the lack of good pics.  I was running my video camera to do a you tube video for everyone with the clamming in the fog.  I am unable to do anything since i can not convert my kodak playsport files to window movie maker, sorry.  

pink krill like creatures.