Thursday, February 7, 2019

A Special Day in February

Some days are just unforgettable. Near 60 degree days in February are hard to forget anyway, but add a new and exceptional wild brook trout stream, a good friend, a few stoneflies and midges, and rising fish, and you've got yourself something truly special indeed.

On Tuesday Alan and I put in some time trying to access one stream. I had fished it before but in a different area, and it had some beautiful brook trout. But this section we were trying to fish was hard to reach and also really hard to fish. It didn't have the best bottom structure, it was very sandy, and the amount of briers made the banks nearly impossible to navigate. We gave up after less than half an hour at that stream.


Our plan B was a tiny stream not far away that I had heard had brookies but had never even seen in person. And it really was tiny. Upon seeing it, I was a little skeptical about how good it would be. It was quite shallow there. It was all hardwoods around it, no hemlock at all. But as I waded downstream my preconceived notions were quickly dismissed as a spooked a number of brook trout and a few of surprising size. Then, in a slow deep pool, I had a substantial rise to a Lime Trude. The fish didn't want to come back for that fly, so I switched to a Sturdy's Fancy. It took me a couple of casts to hit the right spot, but when I did the fly vanished in a large boil. I set the hook and was quickly into a brook trout powerful enough to demand careful rod angles. As the fish tired my leader tangle in an over hanging branch. I rushed down to land the fish and fortunately was able to do so.



This was an exceptional fish for such a minuscule stream, and on a dry fly no less... it would take a serious disaster to make this a bad day, and I'm pleased to report that nothing of the sort happened. In fact, the day only got better.








Though not warm, the water wasn't as cold as it often is in early February. 42 degrees is not half bad.



Brook trout were far from the only abundant life in the stream. A variety of cased caddis, rock worms, mayfly nymphs, and even large golden stonefly nymphs had found the stream bed more than suitable.




When you have a day like this in February, it certainly is one to be remembered.  Though we aren't far from days like this being quite abundant, the stark cold and ice of January and February put good conditions to explore new water with dry flies at a premium.

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15 comments:

  1. Awesome to see so much life in such a neat little stream. Sounds super!

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    1. Some surprise me, honestly, and this one did. Deep water was a rare commodity.

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  2. Thanks for sharing this!

    I don't get out to fish nearly as much as I would like to but really appreciate reading about your adventures.

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  3. February in England is mostly dark, wet and windy. We have 50mph south south westerlies today. I will attempt a pike or to but in a wide open river with some skeletal reeds to hide behind. Our river trout fly fishing legally starts in April, all browns, no brookies.

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    1. The wind I'll let you keep but I'll trade the dark amd wet for our regular sub-freezing days.

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  4. It was quite the day. After the blood letting of the first stream the second was so pleasing and with a little more water it should produce banner results.

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    1. We'll have to make the walk to the more readily accessed portion of the first stream one day.

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  5. That was a rush. That stream was a beauty and there should be natives in it. They are feeding well and enjoying their home.
    Tie, fish, write, conserve and photo on...

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    1. The reality is there should only be natives everywhere, and I'm not leaving that term exclusively to trout. But it doesn't come as a surprise to me when streams like this one don't have them, small, shallow, open, and cut off as they are. It is a stream like this one that can have an entire population rendered extinct in just one year.

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  6. Ah.. February! Always surprising, but that makes for some good adventures when someone has preseverance and you certainly do.

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    1. Seems every February in recent memory has had a couple quite warm days. The climate is changing, after all.

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  7. Rowan
    Glad to read about and view images of two pros fishing small streams a lot of us marvel at and wish we live closer to experience. Both you guys are at the top of your game when it comes to small stream fishing. Enjoyed the read and thanks for sharing

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    1. High praise, and I thank you, but I'm not sure I deserve it.

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  8. This account is justly deserving of high praise, for the approach you have taken to teaching technique that saves the lives of fish you do not actually need for survival. Others are more likely to be motivated to do likewise, once the importance of doing so is pointed out. Elements of the best life lessons. I see elements of the writing style that embues the work of E.B. White and John McPhee here. Carry on!

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  9. Oops...I meant this comment to appear under entry entitled "Winter at Home" ....

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