Small Stream Summer Report

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I've gotten out a bit over the last couple weeks to fish some small streams. This is one of those rare summers where my home river has periodically been cold enough to fish, mainly right after heavy rain. On one day after a rainstorm, I got out and fished mice there. This is something I'd tried there other times and I'd had some limited success. I hadn't managed to land a wild brown trout on the mouse during the day though. On this trip, I'm fairly certain every single wild brown I put that mouse in front of ate it. I caught a few but missed most and lost a number of large fish as well, including one solid 18 incher that I got enough of a look at to know was one of the best looking brown trout I'd ever seen.

More recently, though streams were still low, colder nights were making them safe to fish again. I went out after large brook trout. Believe it or not, the spot you see below is a great spot for brook trout some times of year, and late summer early fall is one such time. It looks like it should be piss warm, but I found it at 60 and 62 the times I fished it recently.

Unfortunately there was evidence that before the cold snap this water had been quite warm. There were a lot of sunfish and bass around, including this small pale specimen:

And I found a very large dead brook trout. At this size this fish may have been nearing the end of it's life anyway, but it is very likely the extreme heat the previous week had dealt the finale blow. I would have loved to have found this brook trout alive, it was the sort of trophy size fish I was here looking for.

Of course there were plenty of brook trout around that had survived the heat wave and were now taking advantage of the cold snap to move further down the watershed and feed heavily. I mostly fished streamers, an Edson Tiger being the most productive. 

On another cool day, this time rainy, I fished a stream that has had me befuddled for years. It is supposed to hold wild brown trout and holds a WTMA designation, but since 2011 or 2012 the only wild trout I'd seen caught out of this portion was Noah's wild tiger. It remained annoying on this day, giving up plenty of great bluegills and fallfish, and a few small hatchery brown trout on mice, but no wild trout.

Really, though it looked like this might be the perfect summer to have consistent small stream action throughout, it has ended up being pretty typical: bits and spurts, low water, very warm water in some places, and better than recent years but not as good as it should be. Given the amount of rain we'd gotten, this really is a testament to how severely we impact our aquifers. No, there's no way to get around using water, but please do consider the impact you might be having. Cut down the length of your showers, see how efficient;y you can clean dishes, keep those lawn sprinklers off. Cold flowing streams are more valuable than a green lawn. 

Until next time.

Fish for the love of fish.

Fish for the love of places fish live.

Fish for you.