BRULE RIVER SPRING 2013 NUMBERS

Good article and something I’ll be thinking about preparing for next year. I’m a relative newbie to chasing Steelies, is there a consensus on pinching barbs on your nymphs with these beasts? I did my first trip, lost a few fish and thought they are less fragile than those little trout and obviously don’t need any more advantages. That said, I’m kind of wondering what you and your other readers do.

sprjack
The raw data does not lie, it just complicates the pattern in the cloth. It is great to look at the numbers and think of the variables. As anglers we try and weave the numbers to mirror our own results from days on the water, sometimes it works! Sometimes it makes little sense but we learn how little we know. It is the input from other anglers and the numbers that tugs my line. The possibilities become endless, oh and then there is that damn luck thing! Thanks for the insightful comments.

I have fished the Brule for more than 30 years with roe, worms, flatfish, yarn and flies. I can tell you that over the past three years I have caught fewer young rainbows than ever before. There were areas and times when you could not keep the small rainbows off of yarn and flies. That hasn’t occurred recently. I did not catch one small rainbow this fall and I fished as often and in the same areas as in past years. Not catching a few small rainbows is odd given past experience. Without the small rainbows there will be no steelhead.