Brook trout fever

The warm weather of late has drawn my wife and I out-of-doors this winter much more than usual. Although the 'weather outside is frightful' and not because it is cold (as paraphrased/quoted from a headline in the Roanoke Times), it does make for good early season native trout fishing. I was amazed on an outing Saturday (Jan. 6th) that fish were very actively feeding in the 68deg.F. heat of the afternoon. I even saw one brookie take something on the surface! Right after that I caught her on my black Marabou Nymph.
Now, I didn't get any 'lunkers' on Saturday like this one from Little Stony Creek (Giles County) in 2002:














(and yes, a 12-incher is a lunker in my book!), but it was hard for me to beat a 20 fish afternoon in a step-across stream in January! I hope these warm temps do not exacerbate summer water temps, but for the time being a few warm days sure offer great therapy for cabin fever.