Where They Aren't So Common....

Every brook trout stream is a little different. Some are just packed with fish. There are so many brookies in some CT blue lines it seems every single lie is occupied, so much so that there will be fish in places you'd never see them in the average trout river. On the opposite end of the spectrum there are streams that have very limited populations of brook trout. On some of these streams good fishing is of a transient nature. There may be a good year or a good month, but generally when you go you don't expect much. There are a few streams that I have fished numerous times over the last 7 years but can still count the number of wild trout I've caught in them on one hand. This story is about one such stream in Central CT that I had a good day on last week.

This stream is high in gradient and very tiny, with shade being provided by both hardwoods and hemlocks. It doesn't get fished I'm sure. Accessing it is a pain and it is only worth it if you don't mind putting in a ton of effort to get to, fish, and get out of as stream that will most likely not produce anything. I've fished this stream probably a dozen times. I've caught exactly five wild trout out of it. Two browns and three brookies. One of the brookies I caught more than once in the same pool. That's it.

The waterfall pool above produced the first and most impressive trout I caught out of this little stream. It was a brown of about 14 inches... how he had grown to that size there I will never know. How he had even gotten in that pool is interesting alone. Immediately behind where I stood to take that photo is another waterfall, equally as impassable as this one. I guess I'll just have to trust Dr. Ian Malcolm on this one. "I'm simply saying that life, uh, finds a way."

This day, though a bit rainy and very muggy, proved very much a miraculous one. In just a short stretch of stream I came across two beautiful, healthy, perfect little wild char. Both came to the surface vigorously for the Ausable Bomber. 

This was exceptional. It had been a couple years since I last caught anything out of this stream. A serious drought occurred in between. I was sure there were still brookies there, but the nature of this stream is difficulty. There never were a lot of fish and there are numerous obstacles to prevent effectively fishing some of the best water. But if one is willing, they are there. Dr. Malcolm was right.