Brookie Weather

This week has been pretty much tailor made for winter brook trout fishing. I not too cold, not too warm, not too wet, not too dry. Winter stoneflies in any sort of numbers are still mysteriously absent, but brook trout eat whatever they can whenever it gets near them in these cold, clean streams. 

The last couple days the only two flies I've needed for brookies have been a Sexy Walt's Worm and my favorite, the Ausable Ugly.

Yesterday I made a four hour long sea run brown trout hunt. I was quite disappointed with the amount of life where I fished. The problem with these freshwater tidal rivers I was fishing is that baitfish migration timing very much dictates when sea run trout will be here. Unlike salty estuarine zones, there are not the ever present and abundant grass shrimp, so finding sea run browns here is dependent on influxes of fish like spottail shiners, banded killifish, and river herring. Only banded killies were around today and they weren't making themselves easily available to predators. They were sitting Over dark mud in about three inches of water in one back slough. I caught one, just in case I didn't make it to the small stream I planned to end the day on.

The little stream I visited yesterday for brook trout is a not one I fish often despite the fact that it is close to home. It isn't hard to get to or anything, but there isn't much of it and I'd never really done well there. In three or four visits over the years I've caught exactly one brook trout there. This time was much better.

Today is a warm one but if I fish for brook trout it won't be for long. Tonight I'll be going after bigger fish with wide mouths and striped bodies.