It's almost here 2019

Kirk

In a couple of days a group of us small stream fishers will meet at a secret location to fish and attempt to catch that first wild trout of the new year. This tradition has taken place each New Years Day since 2011. Each year we select a stream, most times it's a different one and then we hope for decent weather. I don't recall any year when deep snow was an issue although we have encountered some white stuff which proved to be of no problem. Most times it's the cold that's the issue. I believe that 20 degrees was the lowest we have encountered up until last NYD when the temp was 4 degrees when we got to the stream. The winds were active and there was nasty shelf ice to deal with. But we endured it and fished until sanity set in along with a touch of frost bite. It was then we made it back to the cars and had some hot chicken soup and chili along with the hot coffee. No fish were hooked but no one cared. We had continued the tradition and there would be a time soon when that first trout would come to hand. 2019's weather looks to be great.

Kirk and Mark

Pete. I'll bet the fly was a bead-head pheasant tail soft-hackle....Mark Wittman photo

This July we lost our friend Pete. A great angler and overall awesome person. Pete was with us on our initial New Years Day outing and continued until his battle would not let him attend. In our stream selection for 2019 Mark suggested we fish the stream where Pete caught a brown on the first day. It was the stream where Pete last fished with us on a New Years Day. He won't be there with us but I'll bet he will be offering a fly choice to us.