Daily Routine: True Trout

Collin with his first trout

We took a trip to home depot  and somehow ended up fishing for trout 30 minutes away from where we were supposed to be. We had planned to hit the Chesapeake but the winds were gusting  what felt like 50 mph so I decided to spend my day off doing some work on the trailer. When I do a project I always end up making multiple trips to home depot before I can finish and somehow this shopping trip ended up being a fishing trip.

 I had been reading my daily fishing forums and sites and I came a cross a post Virginia had a state wide trout fishing weekend. Trout would be stocked in various waterways and people would be able to catch trout to take home for dinner. I learned last year that the DGIF stocked trout at a pond in Loudoun county at Franklin park in Purcellville, VA. My brother and I had spent two weeks worth of after school/work trips last year only to give up without landing one. After our trip to home depot we decided to check out Franklin park to see if we could land one. When we got there I expected it to be crowded with families fishing but there were only two other groups fishing and they were only catching bluegill. My hopes were low because it looked like they had not stocked it yet and our lack of success last year didn't give me hope that we could catch the holdovers. I had done a little research and learned that trout were much more predatory than I had previously assumed. We abandoned the dough balls and bait we used last year and I tied on one of my pond confidence baits a floating Rapala jerkbait. I knew I could catch bass of every size in the pond with it and maybe I coould snag a trout. Collin tied on a 1/16th oz jig head and a 2 inch gulp fluke which he has been using on a couple of different rigs all year with success on multiple species. We began fishing and I quickly caught a little bass but it was tough because the wind was still very high. It took me a while but I figured with the jerkbait if I could cast with the wind I could get an extra long cast and keep the bait down in the strike zone. The tactic yielded consecutive little bass then I cast a little further to the middle and I got another strike I reeled in my first freshwater trout.

my first trout

golden rainbow trout