The Yearlings Take Over

I haven't been fishing my "part time home river" that much since the start of trout season, so I devoted some time to that river last weekend. A fair bit of that time was after dark, which resulted in some fish moved but nothing hooked with mice. It was during the day that I caught trout, though not in the way I was expecting. 

Now, I have caught small trout here before. But not many. This visit was an exception. For some odd reason there were an awful lot of little wild browns around, and after having a dozen follow and hit streamers almost their size I tied on a Walt's Worm. I caught small wild browns in every single place there should have been one. That's never happened to me there before. I must have gotten 30 before I switched over to streamers again to find a larger fish. The best explanation I can come up with is that last year's and 2016's spawn was very successful and I was catching the year classes that resulted. The fish in this stream grow quickly on a midge and freshwater shrimp diet, then switch over to fish, frogs, and rodents when they are big enough. Growth rates are exceptional.  So these young ones are actually what would be average fish in many small streams.

Stocked brookies and rainbows turned up every here and there between small wild browns. They've been in the river for a while and were fairly handsome as stocked trout go. Their coloration is much improved.

Shortly after switching back over to streamers I got a jarring take in a run that has given up quite a few good fish in the past. This fish was a tail walker, which is never good with big articulated streamers. Big hooks= more leverage. An acrobatic trout is liable to through a size 2 hook, and the larger the fish is the more likely it is to throw the hook with its in air head shakes.. This one stayed pinned.

A little later I wouldn't be so fortunate. I hooked a large brown that wouldn't stay down. I did everything I could. I tried to keep it down, when I couldn't a bowed. On the third jump the fly came out and my stomach turned. I'm still trying to convince myself that fish was smaller than it actually was.

One thing is for sure, I'll be fishing some baby brown trout colored flies here soon.