Friday, December 2, 2016

Brookies After the Rain



Anticipating some good fishing after the rain, Kirk and I met up on one of my favorite streams. Within minutes of my arrival it went from acceptable to completely blown out. It was hours after the last bit of rain had stopped and pretty much every river in the state had slowly dropping flows, so we found that to be quite strange. We decided to fish some smaller brook trout streams in the vicinity.


The first stream gave up some wild brook trout, tough of the yearling variety. I caught a few on dry flies, making December month 22 in a row.


Since I had only brought my 10ft nymph rod anticipating some large wild browns on a larger stream, Kirk as kind enough to lend me a little cabelas glass rod. I enjoyed it very much, it had such a slow action that Kirk described as "very gooshy". That's pretty accurate, but you'd have to know glass rods to get that.



After catching a few of those little guys we moved across the valley to another productive small stream. It was kind enough to give us one fish each. What I like most about this stream, however, it its wonderful cascades and plunge pools.


The third and final stream of the day has some even more awesome cascades. It also has some of the prettiest brook trout I've caught. How the bigger fish in all these streams fared the summer and fall has yet to be seen, as I have not caught any large ones out of them is some time.




Despite the day being far from what we had hoped, it was nice to get out on what may be one of the last truly warm days of the year to catch some wonderful wild fish.

10 comments:

  1. A truly beautiful fish and worth every minute to find them. Sure glad they got some fresh water.
    Tie, fish, write and photo on...

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    1. Fortunately it takes very little time to find those little guys or I don't think I'd be so keen to try for them!

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  2. Beautiful streams, especially that last one. Question: have you ever caught brook trout upstream of that cascading waterfall? It seems like it would be a natural barrier preventing brookies from getting up there to populate that section.

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    1. There is much more of that stream above the falls than there is bellow. The falls do prevent fish from going up from that section, but there have always been fish further up so it doesn't matter. The last two photos are from above the waterfall.

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  3. Looks like you guys had an interesting day. It does my heart good to see those beautiful little yearling brook trout..such a good sign.
    Lovely little stream that cascading gem.

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    1. Yes, especially in a stream that has seen tough times. There is hope!

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  4. Nice job Gents!! I agree with Brk Trt, good to see those yearling brookies and good to see that we received some much needed rain to refresh those streams.

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    1. Unfortunately all the rain does nowadays is bring the flows up to average or a bit bellow average. We need a real soaker!

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  5. RM
    Outstanding streams you guys were fishing; the scenery and the streams outweighed the trout size--thanks for sharing

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    1. You might be surprised by how close to the highway these streams are. Traffic noise and litter put a damper on the wild beauty...

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