Small Streams, Native Fish, and Memories

Some places, despite a superficial mediocrity, imprint themselves in my memory. There are streams and ponds that I fish from time to time, knowing that there isn't much more for me to learn there. Big strides will not be made. I know I have caught as big a fish as exists in some of these places, or as many species as are there. Perhaps I know these spots well enough to fish them "perfectly". I hate that word, because if perfection in angling ability exists at all it is extraordinarily rare. But there are a few places where I know I can fish as thoroughly and effectively as possible. Why, then, should I return?

My memory works in a manor of association, and being in a place will conjure up every little bit of experience I had there. From there I will journey through memories made in the company of certain people. Then maybe memories about a certain fish species, or a certain animal. Sometimes, I visit a stream or pond not to fish, but just to remember things that make me smile and laugh.

This old iron bridge over a insignificant a frankly quite dumpy central CT small stream is exactly the place where my passion for small stream trout fishing was born. Today was the first time I'd seen it in a few years. The exact date of that this occurred is anybodies guess. I had yet to pick up a fly rod. I knew next to nothing about fishing moving water. All I knew about trout at the time was that they could be found in streams this size.

I would probably not have fished this stretch of water were it not for the fact that my best friend lived just up the road. I mean that in the most literal sense: to get to the stream, we would leave Dalton's house, walk down the dead end street, and follow the remnants of what had once been a continuation of the street down to the slowly disintegrating skeleton of a bridge crossing the creek. Occasionally, as a change of pace, we would leave his home and go straight through the woods, but that was rare. Oftentimes we were accompanied by Bob. Dalton's dog Bob was probably the most pleasant dog I've ever met. He was immensely cheerful, didn't need to be watched, and I don't recall him ever messing up our fishing. If Bob got bored halfway through an outing, he went home. He was never leashed, didn't need to be. There was only one time that Bob did something rude... more on that to come.

The first fish I caught out of the creek was almost certainly a fallfish. We definitely did not know it was a fallfish, I am somewhat ashamed to admit that I was part of the ignorant masses and called them chubs for far longer than I should have.

Fallfish, Semotilus corporalis, in their juvenile form, are frequently mistaken for dace or creek chub. It is a forgivable mistake, they have a defined black lateral line that fades but is still to some degree visible under water in their adult form.

Dalton and I caught many, many fallfish in this stream. Some big, many small. I caught my first on a fly here on an olive Hare's Ear. Most were caught fishing small Panther Martin spinners. That was our go-to lure. It was deadly. Dalton absolutely thrashed me one day with it, catching probably 10 big brook trout including one of 16 inches. That was well after I had pretty much converted entirely to fly fishing, at least on streams, and that beating pushed me to do something I had not done before. A couple days later I came back with an orange, green, and gold Phoebe and caught some exceptional trout. That spring, four years ago I believe, was the only one in which we caught trout with any consistency here. The state have since stopped stocking this stream. It gets extremely low and warm in the summer, but it does have a tributary with wild brook trout in it. Today I payed it a visit. Many a day has been saved by a visit to one pool there.

Today, the three brookies I pulled out of that pool on an x-caddis were all about as beautiful as summertime brook trout get. They were the essence of why I fish for these little cold-water dwelling salmonids. It isn't for a battle. It isn't because they are challenging to fool. It's because they are painted with every color that I'd never expect to see on a fish living in such an environment.

I'd be lying if I said I remembered every single brook trout I ever caught. In the last six years, I have caught an awful lot of them. Some do stick out though, and one that I caught in that same short stretch of stream is one such fish. It was caught after one of the more brutal fishing winters I've experienced. It had probably been more than a month since I had caught a brook trout. There was still more than a foot of snow on the ground that afternoon, but I had seen through the bus window on the way to school in the morning that the water was open, ice free, and clean. I walked to the stream i n waders that didn't fit me, gave myself a severe blister and had to essentially crawl over anything that would require lifting my leg more than about two feet. I caught one fish, just when I thought all hope was lost, on a Floss Pinkie. It was stunning, flanks just glowing in neon purple. I will probably remember that fish until the day I die. 

 Fortunately, what the larger stream lacks in wild trout it makes up for in other native species. Redbreast sunfish made their presence known as soon as the water warmed and the flow dropped in mid to late spring. Today, many were spawning. I immediately stopped targeting the bedding fish when I saw juvenile fallfish swarm the nest of one while I fought, landed, and released one. Though their population in plenty healthy, they are a native fish in a fairly natural habitat and I hate to impact them in that way.

One of the other natives that calls this stream home is the redfin pickerel. These little fish lead fairly secretive lives. When water is high, they will be any place they can't be seen or caught. When it is low, the are about as skittish and evasive as a bobcat.  Today, they were extremely evasive. I spooked many. I fooled and brought to hand only one. But that one was a heavy brute of a redfin. Yeah, they are small fish, even the largest examples of them, but I love them. More so than either of the two larger Esox species that live in CT. 

The reason for that, aside from there strikingly musky-like coloration and ability to live in the smallest, shallowest water imaginable, is that the redfin pickerel and I go way back....

Many years ago, before I ever picked up a fly rod, and before I was even a reasonably adept bass fisherman, I was drowning worms under a bobber in a trout park pond when I caught a world record. At the time, I had no clue what I was looking at. I dropped my bobber in the weedy, muddy, bluegill filled margin, it dunked under, and I pulled in what was only identifiable to my uneducated brain as some sort of pike. I can see it now in almost painful detail. I say painful, because I now know that at 12 years old, I caught, held, and released a redfin pickerel that would have absolutely shattered the all tackle world record. Frankly, I don't care about being recognized, not for a world record. But I wish I had recognized then the magnitude of what I was holding. It was just a novelty then, a surprise catch that I couldn't identify with certainty. I wish I could go back. I wish I could see that fish again. Photograph it. Gawk at it.

Fallfish beds. Tedious work done by very determined fish. 

Redfin pickerel are the fish that set into motion my species quest. Unless you can afford to travel the world it really doesn't make sense to build a life-list if you aren't willing to target very small fish. It takes realizing that just because a fish is tiny, considered a trash fish, or less than handsome doesn't mean it is boring, to turn into a real life-lister.

Crayfish. Crayfish are funny little animals. I have a bit of an irrational fear of getting pinched by crabs, bit by a big beetle, or pincered by a hellgrammite. I'll pick up a very angry northern water snake without hesitation, but when a crayfish wields his claws and spurts backwards as they do I yank my hand away like a complete wuss. I was catching crayfish way before I even lived in CT. The spring spilling out of the hillside below my grandparent's house had them. I found them rolling rocks in Oil Creek and small creeks near Justus Lake. Crayfish were a significant part of my youth way before brook trout were. Turtles, though less significant, exist in a few striking memories. 

Today I found a couple different turtles. Two painted turtles checked me out in different meadow sections. I spotted a small snapping turtle tucked in the rocks. 

   

The first wood turtle I ever remember seeing was in this creek. Dalton and I were headed back upstream after an exceptional session, with some great trout and a surprising number of bass caught. We spotted it crawling on the bottom in probably four feet of water. Never one to avoid a challenge, Dalton jumped right in after it. I wouldn't have done so, but we got to get a close look at that turtle because he was markedly ballsier than me. 

It may have been that same day that Bob abandoned us. We were taking an overland route back. There was a little bit of a clearing in the tree canopy that we hadn't seen before. The first thought: maybe there's a pond there. Always thinking fish. We headed that way. Bob hurried into the brush ahead of us. A few moments later, there was a tremendous commotion. Bob came sprinting back towards us, blasting head first through very thick briers. He passed us at a full gallop as if to say "screw this, I'm outta here", and just kept going. We turned and looked back in the direction we had been going and saw a very large thing blasting through the brush in an arching line past us, just out of our sight. A bear. It had to be. Nothing else is in the woods that's that big and runs that quickly and loudly. Bob was gone, and soon we were following him. 

Things have changed. There aren't trout in the creek anymore. Some new trees have fallen, others have grown. Three generations of fallfish have come and gone. Beavers built dams, moved on, and the dams breached. Bob passed away. Dalton joined the army. 

The stream is still there. Native fish are still there. The memories are still there.