Brook Trout and Midges

Well, the next fiver or so days look like ice fishing weather, so I had to get out today to do some brook trout catching. I'd caught two brook trout this year up until today, so I decided to pull out all the stops and visit my "secret weapon", one of southern New England's best brook trout streams.

When I got to the stream I saw something that caught me off guard. at first I thought it was just water leaking through the concrete culvert from the dirt road above. But I kept looking and soon realized it was tons of brook trout rising to a steady hatch of midges!

I tied on a small Syl's midge pattern and began drifting it through the rises, expecting some excellent dry fly action. Well, as is usually the case on this stream, these fish were tricky little buggers! I caught about six before deciding that the time between catches and the size of them was just not enough to keep me there.

I decided to start doing some sight nymphing with a simple ice dub nymph. I dropped it on the bottom in front of working fish and more often than not the ate it up.

After while of working a pool and loosing quite a few fish I saw a splashy rise. I decided to try it with a dry fly again. I opened the box and a well dressed yellow humpy popped out of its slot. Clearly it was meant to be. But what were the chances that this huge fluffy dry fly would get eaten when the biggest natural on the water is a size 22 caddis? First drift up came a solid brookie. Second cast it was hooked.

After messing around with the risers at the culvert for a little while longer I decided to go fish a different stream that I new had brookies but never bothered to stop at. A few casts with an ice dub nymph and one took. 

Though I did spend a but more time out in the woods today I didn't do much more casting, just exploring and scouting. I might fish tomorrow, but if I don't chances are the next time I do it will be on hard water.