Wet Wading an Unnamed Stream

Today I had two goals:
Fish a stream I already know well and see how its brookies are doing.
Fish a new stream that, though only a short distance from the first, is of unknown status fish wise.

This unnamed stream has been in my head for a while. I was not entirely sure it would even be big enough to hold brook trout, because 90 percent of the time a stream big enough to hold wild trout is also big enough to have a name. But it looked interesting on the map and I knew I had to at least try to fish it, despite the fact that it was a long way off trail. Those are often the best streams.

But first some named and slightly pressured water....

I first fished a long flat, and it gave up a number of juveniles that were eager to munch on ants and soft hackles.

I fished my way upstream, alternating between an Ausable Ugly and a Picket Pin, catching some beautiful wild jewels in the good pools and runs. I was wading wet and I was completely comfortable.

In the pool above I spotted a rise. I put the Ugly through and it trashed it.

In the upper reaches I discovered a new beaver dam. I'll have to in and tear it out, this stretch gets low and warm enough in the summer without it, plus it stops fish from moving up and down with ease.

And so it was off to locate this well hidden new stream to see if it would have any brookies. As I suspected would be the case I had to do some navigating and some hard core bushwhacking to get there. I have to admit my first impressions were that I was going to find a whole lot of nothing. This was a VERY small stream. But in the first good pool my Royal Trude got eaten. 

As it turned out, the stream is absolutely full of brook trout. I'm sure there are a few quite sizable ones in there too. I fished will up into the headwaters and there were fish all through the stream. In one pool I caught eleven fish,  9 on the way up and 2 more on the way back down. I didn't really catch any really small fish. The average size was much larger than the other bigger stream. I was shocked and excited. I love finding new streams, and this one is a true gem.

Because of the crystal clear water and the hatching hendricksons and caddis it was very easy to sight fish. I was able to get fish to attack Stimulators, Elk Hair Caddis, and Bombers with gusto. Oftentimes they were swimming all over the pools they were feeding in, chasing flying bugs, even jumping and grabbing them right out of the air. On my way back downstream I spotted this guy through a hole in a rotten old bridge. It wouldn't eat the bomber so I tied on an squirrel tail streamer and it saw it and traveled a foot upstream to grab it.

 I made one more stop on the way home, at a pool I caught a bunch of bluegills in last year, It delivered and I went home a happy man,