Small Streams and Colorful Fish

I haven't really been fishing small streams much this summer even though they are higher and cooler than the last two years. Why, I'm not entirely sure. Today I decided to get my butt out to my spring creek. On the way there I spotted a turkey crossing the road. I stopped to watch. He joined another little tom on the other side of the road and they went about feeding in a small meadow. Then this happened:

After a little while I left turkey city and got to the stream. I had kind of forgotten how incredible this place was. Brookies, brookies, everywhere!

The top fly was a sz.14 beetle. No surprise there on a windy late summer day. I watched fish rise especially vigorously after gusts of wind. No doubt they were eating terrestrials that had blown out of the trees.Some of the fish I got were in full blown fall dress.

I decided to leave that stream after an unfortunate accident. I was getting very frustrated trying to cast under the bridge and constantly snagging on the aquatic grass growing along the opposite side of the stream. I got careless and whacked my rod tip against the bridge, breaking about 2.75 inches off the end. Luckily I could still fish it and St. Croix sells extra tip sections, so I'll have it back in perfect condition in no time.

The next stream has trout but it's really an odd ball as far as when and where I have caught them. One day you could go and see nothing and the next catch 20 wild browns and brookies. It's always good for panfish and fallfish though.

Between spots on that stream I poked a couple casts into a tributary culvert pool. There are always some brookies in there.

The last stretch I fished was absolutely crazy. I fished a frenchie and was constantly into fish in the deep holes. I must have caught 50 or more down there. Bluegills, pumpkinseed, green sunfish, fallfish, yellow perch, redbreast sunfish, largemouth... it was just a crazy mess of fish. I even caught a green sunfish x pumpkinseed hybrid... that's #61 on my list of species and hybrids.

A very rare hybrid!

You know you've had a great outing when you leave with a fly looking like this: