It’s been a slow year for fishing. Mostly this is due to life in general: Tara’s graduation, moving from TN to OR for the summer and a three week trip to Africa. All of these things have limited my time on the water and kept me pretty well distracted. Until today.
Today I woke up early and headed out alone to a little stream where I’ve caught many trout over the years. The fish are always small so I brought only my tenkara rod (after breaking my makeshift rod I saved up and bought the real deal).

If you were to watch me trout fish you would quickly be able to tell how serious I am that day by how soon I drop to the ground and began to crawl toward the water. If I’m just out enjoying the weather I’ll wade right out and start casting midstream. If I really want to catch fish I’ll butt-scoot all the way from the car to the water’s edge. Which is what I did today. My rewards were comensurate. In three hours I landed three fish over 12 inches, and all of the fish I caught had their adipose fins intact indicating that they were born wild.

 Unprepared for fish larger than 6 or 8 inches I had to play the bigger fish carefully, but the rod performed well and things went easier than I would have expected. The experience boosted my confidence in both the gear and in my tenkara technique.