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You've probably caught used trout
Despite opening-day images of stringers hanging full of and creels packed with dead trout, a pair of newly released studies show anglers in Pennsylvania release most of the trout they catch. According to Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission/Penn State studies, anglers fishing stocked trout streams in the spring caught about one trout per hour and released 63.1 percent of those fish. Similarly, during the course of the legal fishing season on wild trout waters, average catch rates varied from around one fish every two hours for brook and brown trout on large streams to nearly two brook trout per hour (1.76 fish per hour) on small streams. Anglers released 92.7 percent of those wild trout. "In evaluating fisheries, we consider average catch rates of one trout for two hours of fishing time as 'good.' The fact that both wild trout fisheries and stocked waters averaged, and in many cases far surpassed, this measure is exciting," commission executive director Doug Austen said.
Native brook trout are in hot water
My first brook trout arrived on a frosty late-spring morning in mountain water so cold it made my fingers tingle before going completely numb. No bigger than my hand, the brookie was a work of art to rival New Hampshire's Chocorua Lake, its home just before I enticed it to swallow my fly and to which I would return it moments later. Its olive skin peppered with blue-ringed red dots and a rakish orange belly is a vivid image that has stayed with me for more than 25 years. If I had a lick of artistic ability, I could draw that fish from memory. Since arriving here 18 years ago, my encounters with brookies have been fewer and farther between. Some of that has to do with the other fish that occupy my time: white perch, croaker and, of course, striped bass. (Let's not even mention menhaden, OK?) But even when I've carved out the time, it's been hard to do a meet-and-greet with Maryland's only native trout.
Fly fishing reeling in more women
COPPER MOUNTAIN - Standing on a rock outcropping that juts into Officer's Gulch Lake, Char Bloom resembled an orchestra conductor the moment before a concert. Instead of lifting a wand, though, she waved a fly fishing rod.
With an audience of women surrounding her, Bloom brought her rod back and then gracefully rocked it forward, throwing her line into the lake with just the perfect amount of arch. The fly gently landed on the tranquil lake, creating only the tiniest ripple.
"Make sure the fly hits the water first and not the rest of your line," Bloom said. "Otherwise, you'll scare the fish away."
Too late: The 17 female anglers watching Bloom were wearing jingling beads around their waists and they were decked out from head to toe in bright colors such as turquoise and hot pink.
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