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In Delayed Harvest water (stocked) Jacob will out fish me just about every single time. I suppose that it has something to do with his job and my hate for farmed fish.
Either way, I'm ok with it. But, it sure does make my life a little easier when they throw in some pretty ones.
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Fall had finally made its way to Western North Carolina. The 38-degree weather crept in through the open bedroom window, causing a simultaneous reaction of wanting to stay under the warm comforter and eagerness to hit the water.
It had been three long weeks with no personal fishing.
Read moreBrook trout.
They're our native fish, the tiny little creature that anglers all over the East coast search out. Regardless of their small size and far off dwellings, they are the golden egg.
But, why are they so rare, why do we search them out with such fervor?
The answer is simple because they are ours.
Many of us have seen the photos from years past of men standing with stringers containing 20 - 50 brook trout, as long as your leg. We've heard the stories about just how many you could catch in a day, how easy they were to find, when brown trout and rainbows were the minority.
But to us, those are basically just the same as stories of mythical dragons and dinosaurs.
Each year, in North Carolina, there is some new initiative to "Back the Brookie;" stream restorations, license plates, grant research, fishing shockings, etc.. We try our best, but is it enough? Is it the real heart of the issue?
It can all go back to that photo.
Often we try and place blame on the current generation for all the problems. We all think it's never been this bad before, but the truth is it has. Greed, selfishness, superiority, destruction, are all character traits that we all possess and have since the beginning of time.
Maybe if people hadn't over-fished our rivers, but only took what they could use.
Perhaps if deforestation and subsequently erosion had never occurred.
What if we hadn't dumped all our waste into rivers?
Or wildly of all, what if we never stocked other trout in our streams to make up for the trout population we'd already killed off?
Thing is, we can't take any of it back. What we can do is decide that we will be the ones to stop being controlled by the same traits that caused such destruction in the first place. We will be the ones to stop over fishing, abstain from unethical fishing practices, halt the deforestation and fix the erosion problem, and maybe even speak up about the hatchery system in our country.
We can never undo the past, but we can be better than our past. We can be the turning point, the people who when history looks at us were the preservers.
Or, we can be the ones who completely destroyed it.
Let's start by making sure they have a safe place to thrive.
It's not too late to let Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke know what you think about Public Lands.
Visit this website or be like me and make a call. 855-747-9643
This summer Jacob and I have both had lists of things to accomplish a mile long and the closer we get to our vacation the more the "to-do's" seem to pile up. It's been "hurry up and get it done" for months now, barely finding time to squeeze in personal fishing trips. Living life at this pace inevitably ends up fishing at the same pace. We end up worrying about the work there is to do at home, the guide trips that are tomorrow, and how many hours of sleep we can actually survive on. To make matters worse, I rarely sit back and enjoy fishing anymore, I focus solely on how many fish are being caught, am I getting good enough pictures, are all my images starting to look the same, what can I do to shake it up? It's hard to get out of that rushed mentality when it's become your life.
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Every stream is different, every day is different, and every outcome is different.
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Through all the late night conversations about reel seats, shimmers, different varnishing techniques, not being allowed to take the laundry down to the basement for days, and thread wrap choices, I'm always in awe when I see it all come together.
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