Caught Another Rainbow Trout: First Day of the Year Fishing and First Fish

Thought intense sunlight wouldn't mean a hit, but caught a 17-inch rainbow. Round Valley seemed a sort of basin of things rolling over the land and into the depths today, as if everything tends to find water and get swallowed. Lakes, reservoirs, bays, and oceans are sort of like stomachs as water generates all the life on the planet, with a lot of help from the sun. But dried grasses and browned branches and underbrush nearly match the iron-influenced gravel along the reservoir's edge and made the place feel like a desert with big water in the middle of it.

I sat up the hill in the car for half an hour reading before I went down to check my rod. The trout had almost spooled the reel, bail left open. It just took the marshmallow and mealworm and headed on out into very deep water, taking the bait for at least a hundred yards or more.