Early Lake Report: The Urge To Catch a Trout

March felt like April, so it shouldn't surprise us that April has come in like March. I took the float tube out for the first time this year on a chilly, very windy afternoon last Friday.

This is a local lake that opens on April 1st. It provides a good place to get back into good floating form by the last Saturday in April when Trout Lake and all the other local waters open up.

It offers fresh little stockers who are easy, but not pushovers.

On this blustery day they were laying low, but could be enticed to hit a stripped or trolled bead head woolly bugger.

The real attraction of the day was the hundreds and hundreds of violet-green swallows flitting, darting, and swooping everywhere. There is no color like that iridescent violet-green when they turn glinting in the light--something I have not yet been able to capture with my point-and-shoot camera.

There was high overcast when I arrived at the lake, and within a couple of hours it was thickening, and rain showers could be seen ranging over the land. The wind was still blowing hard, the temperature was dropping, and I was getting cold. The swallows would go on until dark, but this time I was ready to call it a day.

So I caught one more fish and kicked for shore.

It took me 20 minutes to get home instead of the two hours it took from Rocky Ford. And the nice thing is it will only take me 20 minutes to get back the next time I get the urge to catch a trout.