Thursday, January 19, 2017

Some Of The Prettiest Fish

 Alan, Kirk and I visited on of our favorite new spots today. The weather was gorgeous but very unusual for January. It felt and smelled like early spring. The brook trout were hungry. I took first blood with a very small fish on an elk hair caddis, but it was only seconds before Alan was hooked up with a fish significantly larger than mine.

I decided to wander off down stream. In a plunge pool where there is always a pile of fish I gave an ice dub bug a workout, pulling fish after fish out of the depths using a slow twitching drift. All told, after two visits to that pool, I pulled 19 brook trout out of it. One thing Kirk and I noticed and discussed as we were travelling between spots... a lot of the brook trout that come out of this stream are just drop dead gorgeous! Have a look at this one:


My biggest of the day was the lightly colored female below. I watched Kirk hook and loose a fairly substantial fish, and I had a few hits from a big brookie that seemed to want to steal my rod.


After thoroughly covering the first stretch of water and stopping for coffee we went to a stretch where the stream is larger and brown trout are the predominant salmonid. Peering into a deep, dark hole I did indeed spot a couple small stream leviathans, if you will; brown trout in excess of 15 inches. However all any of us managed to catch were fall fish, common shiners, and two suckers that I sight cast to with the Ausable Ugly.




Tomorrow I'm planning to fish some bigger water and hopefully it will result in some bigger trout.

12 comments:

  1. It was a great day to be out...my best so far this year.
    The brookies in that stream are giving the brookies in another stream a run for the prettiest in our state.

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  2. That female is a real beauty. Glad the weather is holding good for you.
    Tie, fish, write and photo on...

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    1. The female was pretty in her own right but the one above wins my vote. SPOTS SPOTS SPOTS!

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  3. Rowan
    Amazing how many nice streams you guys have to fish there; did the dries win out over the nymphs? Beautiful colors on those brookies. Thanks for sharing

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    1. Bill we're mostly fishing the same ones over and over ;). No, I did WAY better with nymphs this day.

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  4. I'm jealous. Pretty fish and top notch fishing partners.

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    1. It's hard not to enjoy a day on the water with Kirk and Alan.

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  5. Boy, Rowan, those Brookies look fresh and ready for a new year. Happy to see that you have good water quality this time of year....

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    1. Not always Mel, sometimes too much of the water is solid for the fishing to be any good. The last to years have been quite exceptional as far as winter fishing goes.

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  6. Unique coloring on those brookies. Very pretty tough!

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    1. Thanks Pete,
      We think it has something to do with the sandy bottom.

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