Work is the Curse of the Fishing Classes...

Wow, I've been really busy for the last few months; and both fishing and blogging have had to take a back seat. The good news is that all the hard work has paid off, and hopefully I'll be able to relax and take a few days fishing during the weekends of this fall!

I have the worlds best job, so it's not too much of a hardship to give some fishing time up occasionally. And I've still managed to grab an hour or two here or there to visit some of my favorite river stretches, even though I've not had the time to fish them.

Actually, visiting your favorite stretches of rivers during the low-water summer period can be really informative. With the water at a low summer level, you can see a lot more of the features that you'll be aiming for when the fall rains arrive, or when you are fishing for spring steelhead in a snow-melt spring flow. All you need is a large-scale map of your chosen river, a digital camera, sketch-pad and your hand-held GPS. An hour's prospecting likely holes, vertical features on bends, etc. can give you all sorts of clues where the fish will be lying once a few million gallons of H2O arrive.

You can sketch the best spots, record them in your GPS, mark them on your map, and take a quick pic to refresh your memory later in the year... although remember that you'll probably have to mentally swap sunshine and low water for snow and high water when comparing pic with reality on a cold day in November.

Remember, the best anglers spend a lot of time looking for where and how they'll catch the biggest fish... rather than spending a lot of time "fishing blind and hoping"!