Cloudy With a Chance of Brook Trout

(1/30/2018- This post contains examples of very poor fish handling. Use it as an example of what not to do. Thank you, 
R.M. Lytle)

I had a full day free today. The obvious decision of what to do was made: I would go hunt a small stream for it's wild residents.

It was cloudy and tolerably warm, and I hoped that would help me catch the shy trout that hide in my stream of choice. I started out using a dry fly, but blanked. I put on a sparkly little nymph and hiked way up to the upper reaches, a place where the stream was practically microscopic, and for all I knew, was only nursery water. I was glad to be proven wrong by two nice fish in the top of one run.

I continued up a little ways, then returned downstream to fish one of the tributaries. It is a boulder filled creek with plunges and hides down in a canyon. I cast into several pools before a fish showed itself. In a little bend a shadow inhaled my nymph and came flopping to my hand. This was followed by a loss and another to hand within the next 100 feet.

After that success I went even farther down, and two more fish came to the nymph. I missed a few hits, but that's O.K. I went home very satisfied.