Mousing For Wild Brookies

No, I'm not in Labrador. I wish I were, but I don't see that being likely in the next couple years. Brook trout are by their nature aggressive and opportunistic fish, so it's not really surprising that they'd take a small mouse pattern even in broad daylight. I put one size 4 Master Splinter variation in my box for today's blue line wanderings, and I did fish it for a while. What I discovered surprised me. But before I get to the mousing I have to start where I started, fishing plunge pools on a new stretch of water and catching beautifully colored char on my Crazy Shrimp.

The stream itself is a familiar one but this section was not, and when I explore new water I don't like to leave anything up to chance, I put on a confidence fly and cover the water thoroughly and carefully. The Crazy Shrimp did not disappoint, and neither did the 20 or so brookies I caught in the new water.

After I determined that the previously unexplored stretch was really sweet, I went to the familiar section and tied on the mouse. It did not take long to get some action, and what surprised me was how well the fish took the fly. Most of the brookies present ignored the fly entirely, but the few that didn't just hammered it! Every missed take was angler error, not fish error, which was very different from daylight mousing I've down for both wild browns and stocked trout. These brookies took the mouse with gusto and aggression, nearly always jumping, sometimes as much as a foot in the air. One did a classic downward take, leaping completely out of the water and taking the fly on the way down.

One of the mos fun parts of the day was fishing the meadowy spring creek section. Most of the fish came charging out from the undercuts, and I missed the bigger ones just by being a bit startled by their speed.

Wanted that?

That was most definitely a productive day. I love mousing, and now that I know it's not only doable but quite productive on a brook trout stream I'm going to be trying to weed out the little guys. I'm looking for the giants. I want a wild 18 inch brook trout from a CT stream and I think fishing mice may just be the ticket!