Spring is sprung and I’m glad to see it gone.  Late Spring was slow for fishing as evidenced by the lack of updates…  After a few nice early Spring days, a long period of cool wet weather set in and the rivers immediately overran their banks and turned the color of chocolate milk.  Even my ace-in-the-hole small stream in western Washington’s Prairie (soto voce - that’s a hint) was unfishable.  The wet weather was immediately followed by warm sunny weather which restarted the snowmelt and while the water ran clear, my favorite streams were still high and almost  impossible to wade.

The highlight of this period was showing a visitor from England some of my favorite spots on a few small streams.  We gave it a try but got no love from the trouts as they were probably hunkered down hiding from the pushy water.  Too bad as he was a great guy and I would have like to put him onto a wild Coastal Cutthroat.

As well as the crappy weather, the last couple weeks have been full with helping Aika in her final prep for Jr Nationals in Fargo later this month.  However, this weekend a rest day in her training schedule coincided with a rare fishable day on the prairie stream so we had to jump in the car and make a mad dash south for a couple hours.  The result was a fair amount of hiking and many trouts to hand.  This was her first day fishing this year so it was only fitting that she got the fish of the day.  We had both caught quite of few of the normal 8″-10″ cutthroat and I was absently fiddling with something when I heard splashing and “what do I do, what do I do!”  I turned around to see Aika in a tussle with a nice fish in a tricky spot.  With a little coaching, she landed and released it on her own.  I’m sure when her little brother gets back from Japan in a couple weeks, he’ll catch all my fish too…