Looking For a Small Sunfish

If you asked me if eight years ago if I would want to spend a whole outing trying to find an obscure sunfish species that rarely attains even four inches in length in a skunky small stream, I almost certainly would have said no. And yet that's how I spent this afternoon. Fishing tiny flies, looking for a tiny sunfish species that may literally NEVER have been caught on the fly. Ever. In the history of angling. I've only seen a handful of photos of  these sunfish that have been caught on bait. What am I on about? Banded sunfish. They are a very small, very hard to locate, very hard to catch species of sunfish native to the east coast and only in a certain proximity to the coast line. They are a very unique little fish and I can not wait to catch one. Today was not my day. It was a veritable who's who of stream residents, but I could not add anything new to my life list.

After covering as much of that stream as is legally allowed and some that probably isn't, and catching a stupid number of two inch bluegills, I had to add something to some list, so I decided to fish a stream I knew had brook trout but hadn't fished. I doubt I'll ever come back it's not a very fun stream and I doubt it holds anything more than a few inches long. Not that that's an issue, but this was an ugly stream and not worth the effort. It's so not worth visiting  would post the name if it wouldn't put the other spots I fished today at risk of being found as well.

^That muddy ditch is on the list of streams put out by Eastern Brook Trout Joint Venture as being suitable wild trout habitat and containing native brookies. The stream below, not on that list. Look what I caught there!

What a gem from a stream that isn't supposed to have fish like that! According to some groups, that is.