The Shokuryoshi Experiment
I'm starting a new series of posts. At the beginning of every month, I will be posting a monthly recap. These are meant to serve as support for the "Journal Entry" posts, and to share my current progress through my fishing season. Of course, all of this is related to the "Shokuryoshi Experiment" that I have decided to extend throughout the fishing season this year.
With the start of my recorded outings on May 1, I was eager to get out on the water and put some fish in the net. At this point in the season, I spend most of my time on the local creeks. The start of the season this year is vastly different than last year. Due to repairs to a dam further up in the mountains, the water coming out of the reservoir that feeds the local creek is lower than average fore the time of year.
Week 1
With the month starting on a Wednesday, I was only able to get out one time to fish by myself and record. In the one hour I fished, I only brought one brown trout to hand. Not a great start, but at this point I'm still doing better than my hourly averages for 2020 and 2021.
A cold storm rolled in on the weekend and brought plenty of rain, and even a bit of snow. So, we'll see how that affects the flows and the fishing for the coming week.
Week 2
After the storm, we saw a slight increase of flows on the local creek. I was able to get out for an evening session at the beginning of the week. With it being a race against the setting sun, I only fished for half an hour, but it was a productive half hour. So much so, I decided to write about it in my journal entry for the month, which you can find the link to below...
This would be my only outing for the week, and as the week progressed, the weather warmed up.
Week 3
Going into this week, I wasn't sure where I would be fishing. With the damn repairs still underway, the flows out of the local reservoir were low. That, in combination with the warm weather, caused the water in the creek to warm up to the high 60s. I would have to find a different waterway to fish, or wait it out and hope it cooled off a bit.
Week 4
The weather cooled down at the beginning of the week. I had an opportunity to hit the local creek again one morning, but only for a quick half-hour session. In this time I only hooked up on one fish, and had one other strike, but no fish brought to the net.
Week 5
I was able to get out once more in the last week of May for a short evening session after work. The fishing was tough. I had hooked into a few, landed one of the biggest browns I've caught out of the local creek - forgot my net - so didn't get a picture. But, what made the session more productive in the last 15 minutes was some experimenting with new (to me) approaches. I want to experiment a bit more before writing about what was working for me in this one session, so that I can hopefully deliver a more well-rounded assessment of ideas and execution regarding fishing with shorter lines.
Stats Update
Truth be told, I didn't get out nearly as much as I had wanted to in the month of May. That's not to say my time on the water wasn't productive though. Even though I had about half the outings as I did in 2023, and less than half the amount of time spent on the water, I still had a good catch rate that averages a higher fish per hour than in 2023.