The Quintessential Brown Trout

I'm on the hunt for a very specific fish. I have been for about a year now. It lives in one specific river. There is more then one of this fish there, but odds are I'll only be able to catch one of them. This fish is the perfect big brown trout. Not just for a small river like this, but for any east coast stream. Pretty big for anywhere really. He, or she, has to be between 26 and 30 inches, not a skinny pickerel trout like the Farmington is so good at producing, and not a hatchery fish. I'm looking for the brown trout of brown trout. The big momma or grand pappy. The quintessential brown trout. I know for a fact that fish of that caliber exist in this river, and that catching one is going to be one of the biggest challenges in my fishing career. 

But I also have a pretty good idea of how it will go down, and I know, unequivocally, that I am going to catch this fish on a streamer. I almost did on Saturday, and I will be kicking myself over the fact that I didn't for a year or two probably. Maybe 10. But I don't want to talk about that publicly. 

From mid January through March is one of the best times to specifically target a river's biggest wild brown trout. It is tricky, because it is going to be slow. I caught three fish in about five hours on Saturday, and I consider that an exceptional day of winter streamer fishing. All three fish were on the larger end of the scale for a small river.

I fish upstream with streamers, probably 60% of the time. Some would believe that the retrieve speed I use doing this in the winter is way too fast. These people need a lesson on hydrology. A trout works a lot less hard moving five feet downstream to hit a fly then it would moving two feet upstream. Yes, the trout that ate moving downstream has to swim more than two feet upstream to get back to it's lie, if that's where it chooses to go, but it doesn't have to chase a baitfish up there! It can take it's sweet time about going back home. Food for thought.

My first taker moved five feet for a five inch streamer in mid 30 degree water. More food for thought. It isn't like that every day. But sometimes it's even better!

I have no idea how far the first fish I hooked moved for the Barely Legal, but it sure did hit the fly hard. He was beautiful, a butter bellied 16 inch long male with perfect fins and no hook marks whatsoever. I was after all, standing in a river with no wader boot prints around but mine. I probably had three or four miles completely to myself here. No other anglers.

The next fish was the dink of the day at 14 inches, but she was gorgeous. This fish was a rule breaker, sitting in a knee deep fast riffle. Not all trout sit in slow, deep water in the dead of water.

The last fish of the day, a solid hour after the second, was the biggest and most classically colored. More importantly, it had a small head, small fins and a very thick body. This indicates that even at 18 inches this trout was still growing rapidly. In a couple years this fish could be my monster, my quintessential brown trout. It sure has the right look. The deep yellow belly, brown and blue flanks, and leopard spotting reminds me of wild River Test browns from England. This was a handsome fish, and large enough to get me pretty worked up. I just love brown trout, and if I can't cast to them with a dry fly there is nothing I'd rather do than catch them on big streamers. I've said it before and I'll say it again: the tug is the drug, and I'm pretty high right now.

Today Mark Philippe was with me, and the river was a different animal. More stingy than the day before. Really, it was normal.

When hunting for big winter browns with streamers, patience and persistence is key. Two or three hours might even go by with no substantial signs of life. And then...

Some people might wonder why I often techniques that dramatically limit the number of trout I catch in an outing. Well, the bait fisherman that catches one average trout to take home and calls it a day has less impact on the fish population than the nympher that catches and releases 30 12-18 inch trout and photographs a dozen of them.

Food for though. Many if not most of us are guilty.