Autumn Char Stalking

 I was sitting on my tailgate peeling off wet waders when a local stopped with his window rolled down and asked "how'd you do?"

"Just got here" I replied. 

Seeing that I was clearly removing waders that had very recently been fished in, he gave me a sideways look before moving on. He probably thought I was being an asshole, but I wasn't lying. I'd left my waders on while driving between streams and really had no need for them here. More and more these days I enjoy fishing a small brook trout streams in just my boots and jeans. I don't feel that tromping through the water is in the best interest of the fish, especially between late October and mid March when the next generation of char are still growing in the gravel. But I've also come to relish the challenge of getting into position without getting my feet wet. Wading up the middle of these tiny streams is a short-cut that keeps me from learning important skills, be it casting, stalking techniques, or just the skill of sitting and watching, either unnoticed by my query or just still for long enough that they'd forgotten I was there. 

Brook trout get to be their most spectacular in autumn, and that revolves around their spawn. The males are particularly stunning, and to me it has nothing to do with elegance. Late winter, spring, and summer brook trout are elegant. In the fall these char ugly up, especially the males. They turn into little demons with dark bellies and mouths, red fins and lower flanks, big teeth, and bad attitude. I personally find it spectacular when fish ugly-up, regardless of the reason. Most fish ugly-up to spawn, especially the males, and to me that's often when they look really really cool. I was sneaking around this stream where the fish had probably just quit spawning a week or two prior hoping to find some gnarly looking males. It isn't that hard to find those guys, they're trying to bulk back up for winter. 

Appropriately, I caught the first dozen fish this day on the Ausable Ugly. Ugly eats ugly, I suppose. After a spell the urge to use something a tiny bit more elegant arose. I switched Adirondack tyers from Garfield to Betters, and though Betters' style could perhaps best be described as messy, the Ausable Bomber is a lovely little fly. It ended up taking the best fish of the day.

Noah and I were talking a little while ago about just how large brook trout's mouths are. This is no more evident than in the late fall when most of the fish's mouths are enlarged for the purpose of biting each other. An 8 inch male brookie might have a mouth the same size as a foot long smallmouth bass, loaded with much larger teeth. Those large mouths can fit a lot of food, too. Autumn char really are aggressive little eating machines at their most impressive.

Until next time, 

Fish for the love of fish.

Fish for the love of places fish live.

Fish for you.

And stay safe and healthy.

Thank you to my Patrons; Erin, David, John, Elizabeth, Brandon, Christopher, Shawn, Mike, Sara, Leo, C, Franky, Geof, Luke, Streamer Swinger, and Noah for making Connecticut Fly Angler possible. If you want to support this blog, look for the Patreon link at the top of the right side-bar in web version.