Trouting in Closed Waters

There’s absolutely nothing like getting a chance to fish in closed waters! That’s exactly what I got to do the other day with the Department of Fish & Game. The DFG was in need of 20 trout/steelhead for a research project and asked a few of us to help them catch them. Here’s the cool part…we got to fish with bait in a river that’s been closed for a few months. As a bonus, this particular section of stream is governed by artificials-only regulations. Needless to say, we put a pretty good hurting on the rainbows, most of which were in the 2-pound class. There were also some small steelies in the mix to 4 pounds. The hot ticket? Roe under floats was absolutely deadly! A few fish were taken on spinners, spoons and flies, but the bait & bobber routine was pretty unstoppable. It was painful to kill those fish, but the Department is using them for a genetics study so that they may be able to better manage the fishery in the future.

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