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> First fish of 2015

The ground around Fairbanks is finally mostly snow-free, and most of the creeks are beginning to open up. I went down to North Pole yesterday to test some new drift sampling nets for summer fieldwork in Piledriver Slough, and on the way back home I stopped at Badger Slough to catch the first grayling of the year, and the first fish on my new Hardy Ultralite DD 4000 reel.

This was not idyllic Alaskan fishing, but it's a good place to spend five minutes and put something on the end of the line. I was casting into a culvert pool between a kids' playground and a gas station. Despite my using a size 16 fly, the first fish was somehow hooked in the back, so that didn't count. The second fish was fair hooked, but landed by a kid from the playground, so that didn't quite count. The first "official" (I guess?) fish of the year is below.

I only had a few minutes to fish, but the new Hardy was a pleasure. I'll be testing it out on nicer fish in mid-May, when I'm going to fish for a few days in Slovenia before heading to Spain for a research symposium.