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paintsville lake balancing act
Since it filled in 1983, Paintsville Lake has been known for supporting cool-water fish species -- walleye up to 10 pounds, the occasional 20-inch smallmouth bass, and good numbers of 10- to 14-inch rainbow trout. This is in addition to the largemouth bass, spotted bass, crappie, and catfish that naturally reproduce in the 1,139-acre reservoir. Cool water builds up over time in the lake because of a slow flow-through rate. It takes an average of 150 days for water to travel the 18 miles from the headwaters to the dam, where the lake depth is more than 90 feet. But in recent years a number of factors, including higher than normal rainfall and discharge rates, and the cool water demands below the dam, led to the loss of cool-water habitat in the lake.
Injured vets strong-arm the river
Bond - The trout rose and sipped a mayfly off the surface of the Colorado River. Joshua Williams caught the small disturbance on the water from the corner of his eye. Standing in a drift boat, he raised his fly rod and the trout rose again and gulped in the artificial fly on the end of the line. And suddenly, Williams was in trouble. He'd done this a hundred times before on the rivers and creeks around his home in Virginia, passionately throwing a fly at rising trout, holding the long rod in his right hand and gently stripping in the slack line with his left, a delicate two-handed operation. But on Friday, the baby-faced 22-year-old Army staff sergeant who spent a hellish year engaged in street combat in Iraq had a problem. He didn't have a right hand. The trout surged into the current.
The art of rod fishing
Several times a year while fishing on the Delta, I've ran across people still using bamboo fishing poles. I've often wondered how they managed to fish with such out-dated equipment with any success. While observing them for a while it was clear that they were completely comfortable with their equipment and had mastered their technique. Most of the people I saw would have a metal roller on the tip of the pole for the line to travel across and a tin can used to spool their line wound on the outside. Their poles were 10 or more feet in length and instead of casting they would extend the pole as far out as they could and drop their bait strait down without disturbing the water. Delta legend and bass fishing hall of fame member Dee Thomas invented a technique called flipping that uses a similar technique.
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