Hello and thank you
all for your continuing support of the O’Grady fly fishing blog and with a name
like ours, I hope you all had a marvelous St Patrick’s Day. I would like to
start this blog by apologizing to almost all who have had their feelings hurt
over the last few weeks because of my soap box preaching on fishing to redds. This seems to be the time of the year that
brings out the most intense feelings of trout fishing etiquette, so we would
like to discuss this a little and hopefully let you form your own opinions. Cat
and I went out today and tried to get a little more video of what redds look
like so any readers not familiar with what they look like, can recognize them
easily. We also have some hopefully
interesting facts on trout spawning. I would also like you to know that what my
idea of fishing etiquette to these fish may not be the same as yours and you
almost always have the right to be wrong..JK.
First some fun
facts. Rainbow trout maturity ages start between 2-5 years and a one pound
female can lay 1,000 eggs per spawn; a three pound fish can lay up to 2,800
eggs. The eggs after fertilization take 4-7 weeks before hatching. After
hatching, the fish will carry and feed off the yolk sack for up to 2 weeks. The
chasing males you can see is interesting in that the larger males will pair up
with females and the smaller males will sit back and wait for them to get
distracted and then they dart in and strut their stuff. This is a rare occurrence
in the trout family. The survival rate is determined by too many factors to even
give a general idea; water temp, water quality, disturbances and predators to
start.
Watching the Pueblo
tail water fishery turn from a “put and take” to a true tail water has been a
true blessing the last several years. It was four years ago when I first saw a
true spawn here in Pueblo. I really had no idea what I was looking at and was
wondering why these fish were in the water they were in, why they were chasing
each other around, and even more, why they were not interested in my flies.
Over the next month I began to figure out what they were doing. I do admit that
I tried fishing to them at different times with staggering degrees of success. Talking
to much better fisherman than me, I have heard tons of what seems to be contradictory
ideas on if they will feed, aggression strike or if they can only be snagged. I
have one friend that was once a professional bass fisherman and has no problem
at all fishing to redds. He claims that after you catch them, you put them back
and they go right back to their beds. With the fishery blossoming into an
awesome tail water and the ability to watch these fish live and grow, I think
my natural progression has been to try to protect the spawning fish. I will
never forget the time I was fishing the Dream stream and landed a beautiful
cutbow, after releasing, I felt like caca when I saw she had spilt fifty or so
eggs on the bank. I hope with just this little bit of info you will be able to
develop your own opinion and I will get off my soap box for now.
I did see something
last week that goes way beyond what I think is okay. Cat and I were walking
back down river when I looked down and saw a fly fisherman standing over and
swinging flies through a bed. This is not illegal, but just disgusted me as I
watched him snag off and put a 22 inch male on a stringer. I was so angry that I
cussed at him and then threw a rock at the redd to try and protect the rest of
the spawners. Cody, one of our guides, was telling me of a time last year when
he walked up on a guy that was raking a treble hook over a bed. Cody told the
guy it was illegal and threatened to break his rod and throw it into the river.
If you know Cody, he does not seem like the type of person you want to make
angry. The guy said “you fly fishing guys think you own this river”. Nope, but
we sure enjoy it!!!!
Thank you for taking
the time to read this blog and if you are as passionate about fly fishing as we
are, I hope you stop in to The Drift Fly Shop and say hello. Thanks again,
Connell 719-543-3900
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