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Treat yourself
All is far from rosy, however, for our first-class French rivers. The poor things are suffering from all kinds of ills. Between various forms of pollution, devastating floods, rising temperatures, predation and severe drought, it's not a good time to be a salmonid. I try not to overdo it, and to traumatize them as little as possible: for several seasons now, I've only fished with single hooks, and the souvenir photo is quickly taken with the fish in the landing net.
No big fish on this first day. The idea is to enjoy myself, see friends again, get a few bites if possible and try out a few new lures. However, I'm going to start with a good old 90 mm black minnow in minnow color. It's not a hot day this morning, and there's nothing more painful than getting hooked on the first cast and having to set up again. Apart from the fact that, with its Texan mounting, the black minnow goes everywhere, it's one of my absolute references for trout.
The river is quite wide, so I took my 2.50 m rod in order to have a big lever arm, very useful for soft lure fishing. Medium power, so very versatile. The reel is fitted with braid for maximum sensitivity, followed by a 26/100 fluorocarbon tip. The fish haven't been fished for 6 months, so there's no need to overdo it, and this diameter, which may seem large, will come in handy to save a few lures.
The first touches
It didn't take me long to get my first bites and my first trout of the year. What a treat to see these pretty wild trout, I've missed them.
They seem to be out and I decide to use a lure with a strong vibration, the new Fiiish powertail evo in 50 mm. It launches like a missile and vibrates hard. A perfect lure for fast prospecting when the fish are active. It doesn't go unnoticed in the water, and gets intercepted by the pretty Mediterranean fish, which are decidedly greedy this morning.
The activity will die down soon enough and it's time to switch back to more discreet lures. I'll go back to soft lures and alternate between black minnow and the new ayu color of the Sico Lure mini paddle depending on the position. I'll manage to catch a few more fish this way.
And the last one will validate the new color of the Sico first SP. I had seen her follow my soft lure without taking it. She couldn't resist the suspending swimfish break.
A more than successful opening, which gives us hope for the coming season.
