It's Time for Frustration

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Thanks for joining the adventure, and tight lines.

"Frustration" is an equal and accurate replacement for "sea run brown trout fishing"... it is that time of year again, the time when I start visiting tidal rivers to look for the most ghostly salmonid in the state. I have not caught an adult sea run brown trout since 2014, and that was the first one I'd ever caught. Fishing for them is usually cold, usually slow, usually in fairly drab surroundings... but the mere thought of catching even one big, chrome brown trout makes it something I do with regularity. And yesterday it was these rare fish that I went looking for, and these rare fish that I didn't find. I had a 30 fish day, but that didn't stop it from being frustrating.

The first stream was dead as a door nail. Nothing doing, no bait, no evidence of any fish at all.I started out swinging a Magog Smelt, worked my way downstream through the first set of runs before the stream turned to all slow water. Then I worked back up from the opposite side with a nymph and egg. This is very typical of my approach on a small-medium sized sea run trout stream this time of year. I didn't spend much time there, though, and didn't want to. It didn't feel fishy at all.

The next stream was a different scenario entirely. There were a lot of fish feeding. An absurd amount. They were almost all ugly little stocked brown trout. I couldn't keep them off my flies: nymphs, wets, small streamers, big streamers, swinging, bottom bouncing, fast stripping... it didn't matter, those little hatchery fish latched on again and again. It was fun (or just funny) for a little while, but then it got old. I couldn't get away from them, they seemed to be in every hole and run. 

In the end this was a little less frustrating than the bulk of my sea run brown trout hunts, many of which result in complete skunkings, no fish of any kind hooked. But it left me a little annoyed because I now new I had to rule out one of my closest potential spots because of those darn stockers. They'll be in the way for months to come. 

This is not the last time I will intentionally go get frustrated this winter. Hopefully one of the times I go out intending to get frustrated, I somehow won't.