I went mountain biking in the area of my home river today. I stopped for a few minutes to take a look at the stream. I was pleasantly surprised when I spooked a bunch of 5-10 inch browns. None were on redds, they should be this time of year, but then again the water is just too low still. Hopefully we get rain before the water cools off too much for the spawn to happen. Is my home water what it was three years ago, when I first found it? No. Not even close. Then I could safely say that I would catch a good number of upper teens wild browns in it. But if this rough El Niño year is just an anomaly, and the dry summer- freeze over winter pattern of the last two years breaks, this stream will come back, and so will all the others that dried up this summer and fall.
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| Brook Trout Spawning (last year) |
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| There are usually brown trout on redds here this time of year. This was last year. No water in the far stretch this year. |
It will all come back. Hope you enjoyed the ride! We have had light rain of and on, just enough to keep streams flowing.
ReplyDeleteTie, fish, write and photo on...
Thanks,
DeleteIt will, unless the next few years are dry too.
Glad to hear that some fish have survived. It will come back, but you just may not be home to see it come back. Luckily these trout are so resilient. Hopefully more brook trout survived than browns to help brook trout retake the stream a bit.
ReplyDeleteThat's what I'm really excited about- I have a feeling the brook trout fishing in this stream will be excellent for the next couple years... sounds weird, but the brook trout handle low water very well and browns don't.
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