Blue-22

I got a chance to hit the Catch and Release area on the Blue River yesterday in south central Oklahoma. For trout fishing an hour and a half away from home, it's not bad. Given the catch and release regulations and the fact that the area is a good 20-30 minute hike from the parking area, it's REALLY not bad.

The temperature was reading 19 degrees when I left my house to pick up Shannon. By the time we got to the Blue, it was 17. I think it MIGHT have warmed up to 24 during the day. That makes for miserable fishing if you're not catching fish - luckily, we WERE! Ice was everywhere; on the edges of pools, on the grass, on our guides - everywhere. I lost one fish when I went to put it on the reel, got everything tight and "POP" (the spool was frozen to the reel frame). Notice the ice clogging the guides in the top photo. You could only get two or three false casts before everything seized up. Tying a #18 midge pupa to 6X tippet with frozen fingers always make for fine sport, as well!

The fish were larger (on average) than ones I've caught on the lower sections of the Blue in the past. Most fish were between 14 and 17" and we didn't catch one less than 12. We ended up with about a dozen fish a piece and reached that blissful state in an angling day where catching another fish couldn't have made it any better. The majority were taken on a little midge pattern I've been tying for some time (and a few fell to the #14 BH Prince it was "dropped" from) - I'll post this pattern at a later date.

BTW - we had an interesting finale to the "Day of Ice." When we got back to the truck and started to strip off layers, we both discovered that our gravel guards were FROZEN to our boots. WE COULDN'T GET THEM OFF! Twenty minutes of heat in the car finally reduced the ice to puddles on the floorboard and we pulled off on the side of the road in Madill to finish changing. Crazy!