I went to the Blue River on Saturday morning. Beautiful foggy morning, calm winds and comfortable temperatures. Couldn't have asked for a better morning to be out fishing. It was just under a 2 hour drive from Norman, so I left the house at 6am to get there just before 8am. The fish were biting really well, but with only a 3 fish limit I wasn't in a hurry to keep anything, I started out tossing a Panther Martin and had a HARD bite, but I wasn't ready for it and missed it. I caught a few more smaller ones and released them before catching one that started to bleed. It was small enough that I normally would have released it, but I kept it due to the injury. I switched over to Powerbait after the spinner bite slowed a bit and I caught two more pretty quickly, but both took them deep and like that, my bag limit was full in under 2 hours. I drove 4 hours round trip, for about 2 hours of fishing. I understand the financial reasoning behind the lower bag limit this year, but at the same time, I would bet that most trout anglers live an hour or more from the designated trout areas. The small bag limit means many won't consider it worthwhile to even make the drive. I would have loved to stay and catch/release to enjoy the beautiful morning, but the risk of injuring another fish and either having to throw it back to die, or bust my bag limit, meant I had to pack up and leave. If the bag limit stays low, I would prefer to see larger fish stocked. Alternatively, I would not be opposed to going back to a trout stamp system for the ODWC to raise the bag limit.
