Now that it’s almost spring I’ve been trying to do some fishing. I went a couple of weeks ago, when the weather was still frosty, but had zero luck. There are a couple of small lakes, ponds really, on post that are stocked part of the year with trout. Historically, the best way to catch the trout has been with chartreuse Berkley PowerBait floating eggs. This year it seemed the trout were not impressed with eggs. When I spoke with others out fishing, they said the trout wanted spinners; blue and silver, or red specifically (maybe the trout had answered a You Gov poll….). So I went out and bought them, and though I did get a few hits, I failed to catch any fish that way. I think my hands were too cold to feel the hit in time to respond.

At work this past week I was talking with a coworker about fishing; and how it seemed my fishing had become as fruitless as my hunting during deer season. My co-worker told me her husband had been out fishing two days in a row succeeding at getting the creel limit of five trout. When I asked what her husband was fishing with, she told me PowerBait green salmon eggs with garlic; and then she had her husband buy me a jar.

Friday after work, I took my labbie-girl (who is my service dog and works with me) to the smaller of the two post ponds stocked with trout, and tried the new floating eggs. Two successful trout catches later, which was also two hours later, I headed home; feeling somewhat confident that my luck was changing. I started Saturday morning off with a nutritious and yummy breakfast of fresh trout and farm-fresh eggs. And then I headed back out to the fishing hole.

I reeled in my first trout of the morning within 30 minutes of arriving; and spent the next hour empty handed. While I had my Shimano rod & reel combo set up with my homemade snell and salmon eggs, I continued to use spinners on my new Daiwa Revros combo hoping that I could catch some trout doing “real fishing” as my son calls it. Alas, the trout were nary impressed with my casting and reeling abilities.

As I sat on my blue plastic Walmart fishing bucket, an older gentleman pulled up, on his way out, and asked how I was doing. I shared that I’d caught one fish, and he asked what I was using. I explained that I was using red salmon eggs and green salmon eggs with garlic on a panfish hook (a plain shank hook). He got out of the passenger side of the pick-up truck, reached around in his gear back in the bed and said, “I don’t usually help people out, but I’m going to give you something.” Then he shuffled down to my location, holding tightly onto his thick wooden cane, and handed me a jar of Berkley chartreuse salmon eggs (without garlic) and a package of snelled single trout egg hooks. The fisherman assured me these would do the trick as he’d caught his creel limit. As he headed back to the truck he said, “I don’t see many ladies out fishing.” I thanked him and continued with my set up as he drove away. But I figured I might as well try the tiny gold hooks, as I couldn’t do worse than I already was. He had given me one snelled hook already baited, so I added it to my swivel to test it out.

Lo and behold; I caught a trout; on the trout hook, not my panfish hook. So I changed out my bigger hook for a smaller one, kept both attached to my line, and put the fisherman’s regular floating egg on one and my garlic seasoned egg on the other – just to see if one was favored over the other. I caught two more trout within my second hour, for three that hour total; and the fish seemed to prefer the garlicy eggs. None the less; using the small single trout egg hooks really worked well and improved my catching performance!

By this time I was very excited, needing only one more trout to reach my limit. I believe I have ever only reached the creel limit once prior. Much to my labbie-girl’s chagrin, it took a full hour just to catch my fifth trout. But I succeeded in catching my limit and bringing home five trout to gut, clean, and freeze as future meals.

The thing about fishing, from my perspective, much like hunting, is I’m usually trying to figure stuff out on my own. Although my father did take me fishing when I was a little girl, I don’t have memories of lessons in knot tying, and knowing how to choose the right bait or lures. And as with my hunting; my disabilities often impact the way in which I do things, requiring adaptation to what is considered “normal.” When I have time, I read up on techniques or watch shows and videos; but I learn best experientially. I would hazard a guess that in this technological and information-laden age answers can be found to almost any question; the caveat being that one has to know the question to ask. Not knowing what I don’t know makes it hard to search for helpful information.

And then, like all creatures great and small, trout do their own thing. I try to find concrete methods and protocols to assure my results when fishing and hunting; but even if I could perform exactly the same way each and every time I cast a line or endeavor to hook a fish – the fish respond differently on Friday’s than on Sunday’s, differently when it’s less than 50 degrees as compared to when it’s warmer, and differently between 9:00 AM and Noon than they do from 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM. Last year at a NWTF turkey hunter education course I learned, “Turkeys will do what turkeys will do.” I have since come to apply that to deer, rabbits, and of course, fish; “Trout will do what trout will do.”

Now that I know about these nifty little single egg hooks, I sense I will have many more happy fishing experiences before trout season ends in April or May, when the temperatures get too hot. But I have to hurry; turkey season is just weeks away!