Everything's Coming Up Brown

I caught plenty of fish today, but every trout was of the carnivorous buck-nasty kind. No brookies, no rainbows, just browns. Not that I mind that, I love brown trout. Their attitude is notorious; they can be a true beast chomping on crayfish, salmon parr, and mice; or they can be picky a**holes. Today I got a bit of both worlds.

I started out at the same pool I fished on Sunday with streamers. The water has gone down a bit, and I decided to use nymphs. I started out with a prince, and drifting that next to a big boulder got me into a decent brown, but it soon became apparent that I needed something smaller, so I dropped a red zebra midge off the back. That gave me two more fish to hand and plenty of missed takes. Believe it or not, those were my first trout ever taken on the zebra midge. I ought to use it more often!

After working the bend pool out I began working my way upstream. In this river it is often very hard to find fish, other than the bend pool they seem to be very spread out. I caught numerous creek chubs and red shiners, but no salmonids. One really nice fallfish showing spawning colors did make it worth it.

 On the walk down I crossed a small tributary and was surprised when a number of wild brookies spooked. I spent a little while checking out some of the better pools and it looks like there are some decent natives in this stream. I'll need to fish it some time soon.

 Downstream I fished a stretch that is always good for some juvenile salmon. I got a few on streamers than switched to a bomber. I got a bit of a shock when a 14 inch smolt leaped out after the dry fly! Of course I didn't hook him and he didn't come back.

The last stretch of water I fished is one I fished three years ago and haven't been back to since. On that first trip I spotted a HUGE rainbow in a nice pool, and sure enough there were plenty of good trout there, and in a bigger pool upstream that I'm sure has a few monsters hiding in it. Of course a beaver decided to spook them all for me, only leaving a few smallmouth willing to eat my fly.

On the way back down I ran the streamer through what I'm going to call "The Rainbow Pool" (because of the big fish I saw there a few years ago), and sure enough a nice brown pummeled it. He's getting a bit of a kype and some yellows are starting to show on his belly.

The Rainbow Pool

I decided that that fish was more than sufficient to end the day on, a nice brown on a day where the only trout were Salmo trutta. Tomorrow I need some brookies.