Saturday, January 16, 2016

Big January Brookies

Some of you may have noticed, but this fall I had a rather glaring lack of big colored up male brookies. That's mostly because of the conditions: low water, lot's of leaves, and unpredictable spawning. But winter 2016 is already making up for that and I have caught some really nice brookies. Today I got two spectacular males that both still had spawning dress on. I would classify one as one of my ten best wild brookies.
We had rain last night, so the stream I fished was flowing beautifully with clean, clear water. I'm sure that rain water raised the temperature of the stream a bit too, so I figured the fish would be feeding. I also figured that I would need to sink my flies to within a couple of inches of the bottom in order to reach the fish. A weighted Ausable Ugly was all I needed. The best pools in this stream are deep plunges, and that is unsurprisingly where the first take came from. I was high sticking the fly in the seem and BAM! A gorgeous dark male brooky was on.



The next productive pool is extremely deep, and it holds a lot of fish. Today I caught three, one big male and two smaller females. The big male hammered the Ugly and fought like a train. I love catching big, wild, hook jawed brook trout!



14 comments:

  1. Nice colorful Brookies! That stream looks great. They were on the bottom for sure. Good choices.
    Tie, fish, write and photo on...

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    Replies
    1. Thanks,
      If you know where the fish are and what they eat, you can catch fish any time and anywhere.

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  2. Wow, those are beautiful brook trout. Well done!

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    Replies
    1. Thank you,
      I have not run into what I would call an ugly wild brooky yet.

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    2. Same here. They are all beauties.

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  3. That stream has some nice deep pools, so no wonder it holds some larger brook trout. That is one badass male! Love the hooked jaw.

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    Replies
    1. You've been here before, except you were the one that hooked into a nice male, remember?

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    2. I remember now. I didn't recognize it at first with such high water. That was a cool stream as are the ones connected to it.

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  4. Beautiful Brookies!! Excellent photos of the stream, love the plunge pools and it is great to see that places like this still hold wild brookies in our state!

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    Replies
    1. Thanks,
      They are more prevalent than most think.

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  5. Wonderful day. Special fish in that stream for sure.

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  6. Replies
    1. Thanks!
      I'll never complain about catching brookies like that!

      Delete