Ending the ice season with a bang!

While not as sought after as yellow perch or panfish, the white perch for me has been the funnest thing to target through the ice, simply due to the huge size of these fish, and tendency to travel in huge schools.  Not to mention they fight harder than yellows of the same size.  Since they're devastating other native fish species populations, it's good to know every fish that is taken out of the lake helps, even if only a little. 

Last weekend I took my girlfriend out on the ice, and conditions weren't ideal.   3-5 inches of water on the ice mostly everywhere.  We joined up with a few of my friends and got into fish right away.  Every time the jig would drop and sit for more than a second, it was fish on.  I only had brought 2 buckets, which were full in a few hours. It got to the point where I couldn't even put my line in the water because Katlyn was catching so many fish so quickly.  We had our fill of fish, and didn't want to fill my sled up and have to carry everything through the water, so we called it and headed home.  The next day was a day of RR...plus I didn't want to rush out back on the ice and deal with the lake on top of it.

This weekend was going to be my last weekend out on the ice, simply because the ice was getting weak, and the shores were starting to flood with water.  Looking at the forecast only confirmed that the ice would not be good much longer.  High 50's almost all week with sun and rain...not too good for the ice.

After talking to a few people about the ice conditions, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the water had evaporated (or soaked into the now hone-comb like ice) and the ice was dry mostly.  So Saturday, my good friend Chris picked me up around 9 and we were on the ice by 10.  There were plenty of people already in the hot spot, including my friend Mike.  A few of Erics friends were out there as well, and they'd been there since early morning.  Their sled was almost already full of fish!

We setup and immediately started catching fish.  The action was steady for a few hours, and we were filling up our buckets and coolers quickly.  Chris and his friends decided to go check out a spot where people may have been catching panfish.  A good change in pace over the whites we were getting (they seemed to be much smaller than usual)  I stayed, watching my fishfinder fill up with hundreds of fish from bottom to right under the ice...I was loving it. 

A few hours later, my buddy Mike was passing by me to head back to his car.  He was done for the day - he'd filled up his limit of fish which was 4 buckets!  He also had a cool "hood ornament" which was a 4 lb salmon he'd jigged up through the ice over in the shallows next to Eric and his friends!

 He began to tell me how they weren't catching panfish, but huge white perch over in that area, which was only 8 feet deep.  I packed up and headed over just as Chris' friends were leaving.  They had their sled packed full along with a cooler and two buckets full! 

Turns out, the fish weighed over 340 lbs, wow!  Chris and I continued fishing and started to catch some HOGS!  I had a few that took me a few minutes just to get to the hole because they were so big.  Running 3 and 4 lb test with light action rods is a blast.  We caught probably dozens of Master Class white perch that day, but this one in particular was fatter than others.

Pig of the day on Saturday, a 14" football.

We were off the ice by 6 and I estimate that I had caught about 150-180 lbs of fish!

Saturdays haul between Chris and I at the end of the day

 While we had no plans to get back out there on Sunday, we just couldn't resist.  Chris has ski plans that got canceled, and I needed one more fish filled day before calling it quits on the ice.  We headed out later in the morning, and unloaded mostly all of our catch from the day before at the bait shop before heading back out.  I've caught so many fish this year, I've been giving as much of it away as I can.  Needless to say, people had their fill of fish already, so I was forced to sell mine.  The price was miniscule compared to how many fish we sold, only because the number of white perch being caught lately are astounding. Supply and demand! No bother though, I'm in it for the sport, not the money!

We were setup on the ice around noon, and got into them pretty quickly.  A few others were in our hot spot from the day before, so we had to make due with what ice we could fish.  As they started to leave, we worked our way back into our usual spot.  We got into fish, but they weren't as steady as Saturday.  Later in the afternoon, we took off in opposite directions hoping to find another big school without any success.  We ended up right back where we started and good thing, because the fish came to us.  We once again started picking up big fish in good numbers, RIGHT below the ice.  We were simply dropping our jigs down about 2-3 feet below the ice and we could watch the fish come up and strike it.  We could also move our jigs out of the way of the smaller ones until a big one came and took it.  It was amazing to be able to do this!  After about 5 hours on the ice, we had to pack up to be able to sell our overflow of fish.  We caught our last fish, tipped our hats to the fish gods and packed the car to go unload our days catch.  I kept one full bucket of the biggest ones of the day to give to a family friend, which he loved.  It felt good to be able to give an old timer more fish than he's seen in many years!

My haul on Sunday, not bad for about 5 hours of fishing.

The shoreline while we were leaving Sunday. Notice the open water further out.

Now I get to clean all my gear, pack it away....and start sorting through my river gear for some great Spring fishing in the rivers!  I have some new rods, reels, gear, and flies I'm going to love testing out this year.  Ice fishing couldn't have been better for me this year, and I feel so lucky to be able to have such good fishing all the way up until ONE week from the opening day of trout season.  While many rivers will be blown out, I'll still be having fun on the smaller streams that may be just the right height.

2014 ice fishing so far

It's been a great ice season so far, with the main target being the invasive white perch (Morone Americana)  This invasive species has been thought to gain access to Champlain through the Hudson River via the Champlain Canal.  Ever since, their numbers have grown exponentially.  They seem to thrive regardless of condition, and are very prolific spawners.  They love to eat walleye eggs during the Spring spawn, which is a big reason they are so hated.  Another big reason is they are yet another predator to our declining population of baitfish - the rainbow smelt.  Pretty much everything about white perch are hated - besides the meat.  Personally, I do not care for most fish besides perch and panfish.  So to find out these fish are not bad tasting at all (similar to yellow perch) I've been more than happy targeting them, and usually finding them in HUGE schools.

Though these fish have the name, "perch"  They are not a member of the perch family, but rather the bass.  They share the same habitat and resources as our native yellow perch however.  Due to them being on average, bigger and MUCH more aggressive than yellow perch, they seem to be thriving in our Lake.  Having caught so many, it is astounding to see how many of these invasive species can come out of just ONE hole through the ice, in 15-40 feet of water.  I have personally had many days where I've filled more than 2 5-gal buckets only fishing 3-4 holes.  The fact that these fish can be caught on a plethora of different baits, even at different depths, just goes to show how voracious they are.  Unlike yellows that seem to like to hug the bottom, I've caught these fish anywhere in the water column, even 10 feet below the ice in over 40 feet of water.  Bibets, spikes, spoons, minnows....they will eat almost anything through the ice, and for the most part hit very aggressively. Couple that with the fact they they seem to fight harder than yellow perch of equal size, they are actually very fun to target through the ice.  Almost every time I have been out targeting them, I've gotten over a 5-gal bucket of them, with 75% of the trips yielding 2-3 buckets!

It is scary to think how many of these invasive fish are actually in our Lake if I've caught this many through the ice in just one general area of the Lake.  4-5 years back, before knowing much about these fish, I was fishing the Winooski river in early June, hoping for anything really.  After catching the usual bass and suckers, I started to catch white perch.  A few hours later, I had probably caught 150 lbs of them.  My mind was just blown at how many of them were in one spot in this 9-mile stretch of river.  I know now that they were probably gorging themselves on walleye eggs.  In any case, I have shown a few fishing buddies of mine where to catch them, and they've had their fair share of white perch as well.  I'd like to think we're doing the Lake a favor by taking out hundreds of pounds of these fish every weekend.  After fishing with a friend who used a vexilar (a type of fish finder)  I noticed how much easier it made finding these fish...I know what my first purchase for next years ice season will be!

Here are just a few pictures of some of the action that's been had this year through the ice.

Next to an 11' filet knife, a fat 13" white.

The big fish of the day, a white that was almost 14"!

Made the mistake of only bringing one bucket.

Two of the bigger fish of the day, both 13"

After a fun day of catching a combined 5 buckets of fish between a friend and I, I thought this pose would be good.  Swimming in white perch!  You can't tell by the picture, but the perch in my right hand was massive.  I forgot to get a weight, but it was 14" and probably close to, if not 2 lbs. 

My latest adventure.  This was the just the beginning of our piles of white perch. Notice the third hole to the left - my friends fish finder was in it.  We were fishing 25 feet of water, and there were so many fish from bottom up to about 10 feet that we thought bottom was just 10 feet below the ice.  It wasn't until we looked at the "depth" on the fish finder until we realized that the fish were in there so heavy, it wasn't bottom we were seeing, it was the TOP of the school of fish.  Amazing!

If at first you don't succeed...

Try, try again!

That pretty much sums up my Winter steelhead fishing here on the Winooski.  Only issue is, I've yet to succeed.  This Winter has been brutally cold, covering the deep, slow moving water I usually target in the Winter with thick ice.  The amount of open water to fish is miniscule, and is faster than I'd like to fish.  Still, I won't give up until it closes next weekend.

The Salmon Hole, a 2 minute walk from where I live right now.

The opposite side of the river,  this time testing out a new toy - a Lamon Speedster reel.

I look forward to Spring more than anything right now, even though I have been having a great time ice fishing this year, catching probably over half a ton of invasive white perch from Champlain, Spring and the great fishing it brings could not come any sooner  With the amount of times I've been out looking for steel, I sure can't wait for the Spring run of steelies to come in.  I have more than a few spots to target them this Spring on the Winooski.  On top of that, this years trout season will be yet another blast, with a few trips to the NEK already being planned.  Plus, carp, sheepshead, bowfin, gar, and even catfish are on my target list this Summer with the help of a friend from work.  

An end to 2013

Well, 2013 was a spectacular year for me on the water!  I fished many new rivers, met many new friends, and caught my fair share of BIG fish, especially salmon!

Spectacular as it may be, it was a bit of a weird year numbers wise.  Our Champlain steelhead runs were incredibly low, almost unheard of in some rivers.  As for the Winooski - I only landed a few cookie cutters and lost quite possibly the biggest steelhead I'd ever hooked in VT....but that will be a story for later. 


2013 will be insanely hard to top in terms of salmon, I landed dozens of BIG salmon, all but one on flies as well.  I somehow managed a 10 lb hen on the swing during a sunny September day when the water levels were quite low.

As the season progressed, fish started to get more territorial, and started to just whack everything out of aggression.  I'd never seen such aggressive behavior from salmon before, it was just incredible!

I took out a few friends who had minimal salmon experience, and they both got into some very nice salmon as well.  One was even his FIRST salmon on a fly, which took less than 20 minutes of fishing for him.

Mike with his first atlantic on a fly!  A colorful hen with a few lamprey scars

He went on later that day to lose a monster!  It broke his 8 lb tippet like nothing after it somersaulted across the water like it had been dragged behind a speed boat on a tube, and then fell off!

I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.  I did very well on a couple of solo trips too, yelding 2-4 fish almost every time!

I found this smaller guy cruising upstream in shallows, managed to get a long cast out in front of him with a big white 4" bunny leech.  As soon as it hit the water and I started to strip it, he went bolting after it.  I increased the speed of the retrieve, and it only made him more angry.  He chased the fly about 70' before inhaling it 5' in front of me, it was something I'll never forget!

A hen that took a swung fly right before the male below this picture.  Two fish in 10 minutes!

Big kype on this guy!  Took a swung leech right before dark!

We called this guy dolphin nose

One of my favorite pics....such beautiful color on this guy, and next to my new Helios 2!

Not nearly all the fish caught, but just a few for examples...My buddy Jerry also got out for some salmon action too!

This picture at the bottom was of yet another 10 lb salmon!  A good match for the 10 lb hen 2 months prior.  He was all colored up and kyped out, and absolutely destroyed this yellow and brown streamer after only a few swings.  I couldn't believe it!  Good thing I brought a little digital scale with me, because there was no way I was keeping this guy just to find out his weight.  I was pleasantly surprised to find out it was into the double digits after subtracting my net weight, it was 10 lbs 1 oz, and was 28.75" long.

One of those fights where your hearts beating out of your chest....I saw how big he was right when I set the hook!


In late November, and my buddy Kenny from NH came up in hopes of some salmo salar action as well.  I had been on the fish for a few weeks already when he came, so when he arrived we headed straight for the river, and got him into fish!
His first fish was a big male, which had some shoulders on him for sure.  He wanted nothing to do with me, and when I stepped in the water and waded toward him, he peeled off line from Kennys spool and went straight downstream, past a set of rapids that just screamed out lost fish.

I did what I could to slide the net under this guy, but the fast current and a fish doing barrel rolls sideways made it quite hard.  Kenny was pushing his 10' 5 wt to the max!  I started to get a bad feeling in my stomach, and sure enough he popped off - along with Kennys fly in his beak before I could get a good chance at a net.  I won't lie, that fish deserved to win that battle... it was intense!

After composing ourselves after that great loss, Kenny lost no time hooking up again, into a respectable hen.

 Shortly after, we spotted a spunky fish coming upstream quite fast before settling into an area.  Kenny was in the perfect spot to drift a nymph over it and it quickly turned its head and sucked it in....fish on again!

We scratched our heads at this hen, she looked like she didn't get the September run memo and had just entered the river not too long ago.  A huge color difference between the two, yet they were caught on the same day.  Very cool contrast!


At the end of the day, Kenny went 2/3(losing his biggest of course!), which was a great day for any atlantic salmon fishermen.  He went home only to return that following weekend for more action.  Our first spot didn't seem like it was holding any fish, they must have moved.  So we tried a different section of river and sure enough we saw signs of life.  It was quite a small, shallow section of river that I've spotted cruising fish in before. Kenny had first drifts, and he picked a great spot.  Right next to the bank was a downed log with very deep water along it. It was a bright and sunny day, so we suspected fish to be hiding underneath it.  He casted upstream and we both watched his fly sink and then start to drift by the log.  Out of nowhere comes this HUGE salmon, darting towards his fly, opening his mouth, clamping down on the fly and then shaking his head as to finish off his prey, WOW!  We both turned into little excited kids......until he set the hook and the fly popped out!!!!

We just could not believe what had happened...wow.  The fish looked like a solid 8+ lb fish too.  We still can't believe the fly just popped out of his closed mouth like that.  We both saw the fly go into his mouth before he closed it, so it was even more upsetting to know there was pretty much nothing Kenny did wrong there.

After that, we fished our way downstream without much.  A few hours had passed, and we made our way back to the same section of river with the log.  This time it was my turn, and I'd been having luck with white bunnys and buggers, so I threw on a white bugger and did the same drift as Kenny.

Yet again, this massive salmon came out from under the log and inhaled my fly...I was almost paralyzed with excitement after seeing him take the fly with such aggression.  A quick hookset was followed by deep disappointment.  My fly had popped out of his mouth just like Kennys.  It was obvious what was going on here - the fish had a hole in it's mouth.  We tried to get him to come back out to play for about an hour after the second take but he was too smart to budge.


Kenny and I decided to go fish off a big rock I always love to fish off of, so we made our way to it and started fishing before it got dark.  Since it was November, I was hoping the steel were in and cruising for a meal.  I rigged up to drift deep water, and threw a simple egg above a black stonefly.

There is a certain run that I've seen before in very low water that fish just love to hang out in.  It's a depression in the gravel with big boulders at the head of it, making it easy for fish to sit behind and wait for food to come by from all directions.  I focused on fishing that run while Kenny fished in closer, through another promising run.  Less than 30 minutes into fishing, my indicator disappeared.  Yes, disappeared.  It was like a magician came along and made the thing disappear instantly.  I was taken by surprise, but knew right away this couldn't have been bottom.  I had probably 80' of line out, so I stripped as much line in as I could and set the hook as hard as I could sideways.  It felt like a solid hookset, and then all hell broke loose.  After the hookset, this behemoth of a steelhead went skidding across the surface of the water.  I looked at Kenny and my mind was just blown.  The only thing I kept saying was, "OH MY GOD!"  This was a truly massive steelhead, and easily on par with the 10 lb salmon I'd landed right in the same area earlier in the year.  I quickly got the fish to the reel, and was running 8 lb fluoro so I was fairly confident with a decently high drag setting.  The fish had other plans though, it took off like a rocket upstream, almost faster than I could strip line in with my hand.  It then turned away from me and started to run across the river.  It peeled off all of my running line, and then about 30 yards of backing before stopping the first run.  I was honestly worried it would just keep running and I'd run out of backing.  I kept the side pressure to it and it was just whooping me around like nothing.  Even with a 7 wt and 8 lb tippet, I felt seriously outgunned and was at the mercy of this fish.

Then, disaster happens.  My line all of a sudden went slack.  Oh the things I hollered....I was broken, shattered...in a state of confusion.   I thought for sure it broke me off, until I reeled up my rig and found out that I still had both flies, and they were both still sharp.  I wish I had a reason for losing that big of a steelhead besides the hook just, "came out" somehow.  I was hoping for a 10 lb salmon and a 10 lb steelhead year, but it managed to slip away.

After that, we had no other takes, and Kenny was on his way back home.  The salmon run was just about over, and they were all starting to head back to the Lake. Things were tapering down, and I was hoping the steelies would be plentiful like the last few years.  I was wrong though.  Other steelhead tribs on Champlain had terrible runs, and I couldn't even hook up on the Winooski after the last trip with Kenny besides a few small landlocks.  My best year for salmon and my worst year for steelhead, go figure!  I won't be detoured by the Fall and Winter numbers though, I'll still be back at it this Spring.

Before they close

Before the season closed after the 31st, a friend and I took a trip out to some Otter Creek and Winooski tribs to explore, hoping to find some huge spawning browns.   The time of the year was right, but the flows were off.  Everything was super low, and fish weren't in the typical areas (around the redds) We suspect someone had fished the same areas we had just a day or two before us.  Our first stop was on an Otter trib, which was 20% water, 70% log jams, and 10% debris in the water.  Of course that made for tough sight fishing and it would have been even tougher to land.  We came across a fish slowly cruising upriver, and thought right away it was a massive 26-28" brown.  When we got closer, we realized by the shape of the head that it was a pike!  By then, he didn't want anything to do with us and went into hiding.

We walked until we hit an impassible waterfall for the fish, and had no such luck finding any big browns that should have been there.  We scratched our heads, headed to his jeep and moved on.

Next stop was another Otter trib, and this time we'd decided that we would fish the upper section, my old friends stomping grounds when he was younger.  We parked and walked to the water, which looked more like brookie water than water that would hold big browns.

Sure enough, about 4 drifts through the first nice looking run, a big brown in the 20" range came out from beside a boulder and chased my pink-headed stonefly I had on, but rejected it at the last minute.  I changed flies a few times, and managed to get him to come out once more before he hunkered in his spot and wouldn't budge.  We had to leave him and move on, so on we went.

Not to far upstream from that, while fishing our way up, I drifted quite a large bugger through any holding water I saw, until eventually a respectable 16-17" brown slammed while swinging it through a tiny little run I'd never to have thought had fish.  It took me by surprise, and because of that I only got a half-hearted hookset on him and he shook off.

By this time, it was starting to get dark, but we kept fishing in hopes of getting another big brownie to fly out from under a rock and grab a fly.  We had it happen too - just not the grabbing part.  Another big brown came out from hiding to chase a fly but wouldn't committ.  We were bummed, yet humbled.  The water we were fishing really was brookie stuff, so to see browns that big in the upper sections was just amazing (I still can't wrap my head around it)

So, the next day it was Winooski trib time.  It had rained a bit the night before and the flows had increased a little which was great.  We fished up from some good looking water I'd spotted last year and knew there had to be spawning activity there every Fall.  Sure enough, 15 minutes after setting foot near the water we came upon a fresh redd - but with no signs of a fish around.  Odd......usually the males will be hugging these for a while even if the hen is gone.  I knew we came up on it quietly, so it wasn't our fault there was no fish there.  Oh well, we moved up.  At the end of the day, we'd spotted 7-8 redds that looked relatively fresh, but had no fish on them.  The only explanation I can think of is someone had been there RIGHT before us, probably the day before!

Well, on to the next spot...we moved upriver a few miles and started over, this time finding BIG browns right off.  There were 4 browns, each one bigger than the other sharing the same huge pool.  The sun was right above us, making it easy to spot them.  We were careful to not spook them, and I snuck downriver, waded into the water and then got behind them while my friend watched from the bank.

I tied on a trusty size 8 coneheaded bugger and made a cast upstream and in the middle of all 4 fish.  Two seemed to be actively feeding, and the other two just cruising.  I was relying on my friend to tell me if they were following or about to hit my fly, but I didn'y relay that message to him for some reason.

I was stripping at a medium pace when my line came to a dead stop.  I let it sit there, thinking it was a snag and that I shouldn't set the hook because it may spook fish near it.  2 seconds after, my friend yells "He grabbed it!" ....!!!....what!?  That stop was a fish crushing my bugger, and I hadn't even realized it.  By the time I set the hook, he'd dropped it and took off, along with the other TWO fish that were chasing my bugger! My friend told me that out of the 4 browns in the pool, 3 of them chased my bugger down before one grabbed.  Of course he didn't know I was expecting him to tell me so I was kicking myself over it for a while.

All good though, at least I had a chance at some.  We decided to check out the next run above the big pool, and I'm glad we did.  I spotted two shapes that were moving in some skinnier water.  I knew right away they probably weren't browns, but feeding bows.  They were in faster water than you'd see browns in this time of the year, so I had Mike wade down behind the fish with a tandem rig of a small bh hares ear and something else (forgot what it was) and throw out a cast upriver from the fish.  I was watching closely to see one turn and open it's mouth for his fly but I was just barely too far away to tell.  His first cast was perfect, just far enough river to let his flies sink to where the fish were feeding, and directly in front them.  I watched his fly line instead, getting ready to tell him to set it when I saw it stop floating at the same pace as the river.  When I saw it stop, he set the hook before I could even say anything.  Right away we knew it was a rainbow by the sporadic head shakes and the silvery flashes during the fight.  It fought INCREDIBLY hard for its size, and after almost knocking him off during my netting, I got him in the net for Mike and we hooted and hollered!

This was the smaller of the two, and the bigger one spooked after landing this.  We sat and hoped it would come back but it never did.  Either way, a beautiful wild rainbow!

We called it shortly after that, and I think we were both pretty satisfied with how the weekend went.  If I can help someone get into a quality fish like that, I'll take none landed myself any day!

salmon with a side of steel

The fishing continued to be quite steady on the Winooski for a little while longer, producing two more salmon over 24" and a small cookie-cutter steelie.  Had more shake off than I'd like to admit....

25" hen on the swing!

22" male who tried to take a bite out of me!

Fresh chrome!

One of my favorite pictures in one of my favorite spots.....I don't think I had a hookup on this day, but the scenery was well worth it!

Unfortunately, the lack of rain made the fishing slow right down.  The flows were at record lows, and the fish didn't seem to be in the usual spots.  I think they were in the deep rocky canals that were pretty much impossible to fish because of the turbine pumping out water so fast.

The Clyde

Chris and I headed over and fished the Clyde for the first time the weekend after my 10 lber.  We planned on a two-day trip, and stayed in a hotel Sat night.

The scenery on the way there was downright amazing.  It looked like the mountainside was on fire!

We got on the water just after sunrise on Sat morning.  The parking areas were already littered with cars from NH, NY, ME, MA and only a few Vermonters...oh boy....

The fishing was tough, and from what we could tell, it had drastically slowed just days prior to our arrival.  but I managed to go 2 for 5 on Saturday and Sun morning.  The crowds were thick, and I wasn't really loving the water that was open to fishing.  It was too fast and shallow for my liking, but since we apparently didn't get there an hour before sunrise we couldn't hold down a decent spot, so we were forced to keep moving and fishing the small pocket water in between the good holes.

My first fish came right after we just started fishing.  Someone was swinging through a decent looking pool and was leaving as we walked up.  I rigged up, drifted a chartreuse egg through the same run and got hit by this 18" male on the first drift!  Just goes to show that changing methods can pay off.

 

You could  tell this guy had previously been caught and released.  His lower jaw was deformed.  You can't tell by the picture, but his kype is pointing out to the right instead of straight up.

My second fish landed came later that night before dark, it that took right before we were about to call it quits!

Just like the first male, this hen had damage to her mouth as well.  Just goes to show how hard people fish this river for salmon.  I'm willing to bet nearly ever salmon that comes up will get hooked at least once, which is insane to think about.  I felt pretty bad for making them worse...makes me think about using barbless hooks if I decide to go back next year for sure.  I already went with pretty small hooks, but these wounds looked like they were from pretty big hooks.  

Unfortunately, Chris had no hookups until we had left the Clyde for an afternoon lunch break.  We hit a small little outlet of a Lake that was a bit of a drive but ALWAYS worth it.  His first rainbow, about 12" ended up being chased by an even bigger rainbow in the 18-20" range.  We knew he was still in the same hiding spot, so Chris kept casting to him until he took, and sure enough he got him!  A beautiful wild rainbow!

Sunday morning was terrible - I won't lie.  We got up EARLY and left REALLY EARLY to get on the river BEFORE it was even light out.  Apparently 10 other guys had the exact same idea.  When we pulled up to the parking areas in the pitch dark, cars had already filled it.  We couldn't even see our hands in front of our faces, yet there were about 6 cars already empty in the parking spots.  We still rigged up and hit the river, but once again didn't find any open decent water.  It was humind and raining - we had enough.  At that point, the fishing was so slow that it wasn't worth waiting 10 hours for two spots to open up in one decent run - we just left.

We took the scenic route home, right near Jay Peak.  We stopped every once in a while on some good looking water and fished.  I came up empty handed but Chris got into two small wild browns.

It was good to finally fish the Clyde, but boy was it crowded for only having a mile of fishable water...jeez.  I even witnessed 3 snaggers below the waterfall and had to yell at each of them, along with other anglers who were fishing in the area!  I hate to think of it this way, but it felt like a miniature Salmon River over there.  Nice water, nice fish, but I wonder if the crowds even make it worth it?  Maybe I'll try to time it better next year and have a double-digit fish weekend that will hopefully change my mind, ha!