To Fish of not to Fish?

Each angler has his or her own morals when it comes down to fishing. Some aglers fish when the spawn is on. Some anglers don't. Some anglers fish when water levels are low. Some anglers don't. When it coms down to the health of fish or even the a fishery itself, one needs to seriously ask oneself if they should be fishing. Two cases come to mind. One is the brook trout spawn in the Fall. I hear every year from anglers about how they had a terrific day fishing for Brook Trout in October. It makes me wonder if the persons are uneducated or if they just don't care. Being undeducated isn't a bad thing. Each time I float a river I learn something new. I am still being educated not only by the river, but by my clients. Anyway, the second case is when a river or creek is very low. Mossy creek often gets low in late Summer and right now the Gunpowder River is very low. Fishing at times like these just puts more undue stress on trout. So why fish? As a guide, I try to be as honest about conditions, answers to questions, sizes of fish, etc. Shoot, if the North Branch isn't fishing well, I tell my clients. There have been atleast a half dozen times where I have called clients while I was on the river the day before a trip to let them know the fishing is bad. I think as anglers we all need to be honest and open about when its not a good idea to fish if its hurting the fish or the fishery. Just a thought.

Rapidan Show

I just returned home from a long day at the Rapidan Trout Unlimited show. It was really good to see all the fellow guides and vendors and also see our clients again. We booked 8 trips at the show which is a pretty good showing. As always, our musky anticts tended to hold everyone's attention. Unfortunately, my DVD player decided to break this morning so we weren't able to show our DVD's on our tv, but the laptops did the trick for the day. Another mishap, was our S-video cable was also on the fritz. Just shows that you can never be too prepared. Regardless, its always good to go do a show to help that cabin fever. Our next two shows are going to be the Frederciskburg Fly Fishing Show and the National Chapter of Trout Unlimited in March. On that note, I am going to get some sleep because I am up at 5:30am tomorrow to teach.

First Blog

I figured it was about time to begin a blog to give people an idea of what its like to own a fly fishing company, to be a fly fishing guide and all the other stuff the relates to Eastern Trophies Fly Fishing. I welcome any comments or suggestions regarding either the blog here or the main website www.easterntrophies.com.