Sometimes things don't go according to plan. Being smack in the middle of January and 
deepest darkest winter, it is natural that most of us are starting to get a serious case of cabin fever. To help treat this ailment Austin, Brian, and I decided to fish the Bluestone for trout. We were just coming out of a 3 week arctic chill that had temperatures in the single digits on many days. The water table looked normal and the temperatures were mild that day so we decided that the time was right. It was a bit of a surprise to find that about half the river was frozen over when we arrived. We had figured that the moving water would have prevented some of this, but as it turned out the best holes to fish were almost completely frozen over with a thick sheet of ice. One of the most interesting things we saw was a big fat otter on the bank near one of these deep holes cleaning himself, marking his territory, and diving into the hole to catch some lunch. We managed to pull a few fish out of these holes as well, but most of our success came with fishing a shallower stretch of river, between the deep hole where we started and the deep holes at the Mountain Creek Lodge, where the moving water limited ice buildup. There were several trout staging in this area, and in-line spinners proved too tempting for them to ignore. We all caught numbers in the double digits, and it proved to be a successful day. 
deepest darkest winter, it is natural that most of us are starting to get a serious case of cabin fever. To help treat this ailment Austin, Brian, and I decided to fish the Bluestone for trout. We were just coming out of a 3 week arctic chill that had temperatures in the single digits on many days. The water table looked normal and the temperatures were mild that day so we decided that the time was right. It was a bit of a surprise to find that about half the river was frozen over when we arrived. We had figured that the moving water would have prevented some of this, but as it turned out the best holes to fish were almost completely frozen over with a thick sheet of ice. One of the most interesting things we saw was a big fat otter on the bank near one of these deep holes cleaning himself, marking his territory, and diving into the hole to catch some lunch. We managed to pull a few fish out of these holes as well, but most of our success came with fishing a shallower stretch of river, between the deep hole where we started and the deep holes at the Mountain Creek Lodge, where the moving water limited ice buildup. There were several trout staging in this area, and in-line spinners proved too tempting for them to ignore. We all caught numbers in the double digits, and it proved to be a successful day. 
