Thursday, June 30, 2011

HTC: First Trout


Well, I caught my first Coastal Cutthroat Trout in my life yesterday. This was the first fish of the day. I used a silver leech pattern, size 10, and the pond I was fishing was full of 5 to 6 inch fish. The small pond is reputed to have 2 lb cutthroat in it, but I was happy to release this little beauty. The orange colors of their throats were spectacular. I will return to this spot again, but I will bring my waders and mosquito repellent!! I also went to a local river to see if I could catch a Coastal Rainbow smolt. The hatchery lets out 8 to 11 inch fish and even though they are hatchery fish, they qualify for the HTC challenge. Alas, I only found three inch Coho smolts, and after releasing two (one for a picture and one at a long line release), I quit fishing to not harass these beautiful young fish. I found out today that the hatchery lets their smolts out in March, so it looks like I'll have to get a half pounder steelhead in August for my HTC Coastal Rainbow.

This picture is blurry and I apologize. I recently purchased an Olympus 540WP, new, for $80, and another $15 for an 8 GB micro SD card. It is waterproof to only 10 feet, but that is fine with me. I don't like carrying my good camera near water, and my cell phone has 8 MB pictures but costs twice what my good camera cost, so 10 feet of water protection for under $100 is fine with me. However, after looking at online reviews, this camera got poor ratings, mostly in speed. I'm fine with the speed that the camera takes pictures, but I need to figure out how to get a squiggling trout in focus. The water and fishing line behind the trout are in focus, but not the beautiful fish. I guess I had better start taking lots of pictures of my hand holding a "virtual fish" to figure out how to get the "fish" in focus.

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