Freestone Wild Brown Trout Redemption Day

 It had been a good long while since I last poked around some new freestones to look for wild trout. A preoccupation with bigger fish had held my attention for a while, but it was inevitable that I'd need to get back out on some boulder strewn creeks to make sure I could, in fact, still catch trout. Sometimes it feels like I've lost a lot of my muscle memory when it comes to trout fishing. I certainly do it far less than I used to. Of course it doesn't help at all that a lot of the small streams I used to fish are a mere shadow of what they used to be like, with far fewer and much smaller fish on average. CT wild trout has seemed to be in the downswing over the last 5 years especially, with some historically productive wild brown trout streams that produced very large fish being almost wiped out. I watched the collapse of my favorite brown trout river, and my home water as well. Fewer fish certainly makes it feel like I've gotten worse at fishing. Thankfully when I actually do fish areas that remain strongholds, I'm reminded that I've still got the touch. 

Such was the case where I went one day last week. I dropped Cheyenne off at work and headed to a stream I'd fished before but to a stretch I'd not been on. The flow was moderate, the water lightly stained. The stream was structurally very similar to my home water. It was a classic New England freestone. The gradient was steep and the substrate was mostly boulders with some cobble and gravel. 

I knew wild brown and brook trout were present here though I wasn't sure of their abundance. I was very quickly catching fish though... so evidently they were pretty numerous. They were mostly small wild browns with some stocked fish mixed in. There was a fish everywhere there should have been one, too. If I dropped my Ausable Ugly into a prime lie, it got eaten. 

I took a mental note of where I got takes, looking back upstream (I was working down) as I went and memorizing each spot I'd missed or hooked a trout. This is something I do a lot, I think its every bit as important as knowing how to present flies well, matching forage, or knowing when the conditions are best. Remembering where you hooked fish allows an angler to draw comparisons: trout don't act any differently anywhere in the world, really. If you see a the same sort of holding or feeding lie you've caught a trout out of before and the conditions and time of year are similar, there will probably be a trout there, whether you're fishing in Argentina, Montana, or Massachusetts. 

Such was the case with this stream. Though I'd never stepped foot there before I wasn't fishing unfamiliar water. I fished pockets, runs, troughs, and plunges I knew and had fished before. I'd seen that back eddy before, and caught that brown trout next to the log- they weren't the same, but they kind of were. Do you know what I mean? 

I picked pockets with a big grin on my face, happy to feel very much at home. Everything was familiar, simple, and wonderful. The fish were gorgeous and the habitat was perfect. I was pulling on trout with regularity and tallying them in my head. By the time I left, I'd caught 38 fish. One was a fallfish, two were substantial holdovers, and the rest were a mix of wild fish and fish stocked as fingerling.

I wasn't done fishing that day, but I'll save that for another post. For now, I'll leave you with a suggestion: fish thoughtfully and thoroughly. Sometimes I find myself rushing along, especially on new water, sure that there must be better water somewhere ahead. Don't assume that. Work what's in front of you first. Analyze it, fish it in a way the has produced fish for you before in a similar spot. then, if that doesn't work, do something new to you. 

I've been very much enjoying the videos put out by Jensen Fly Fishing. They are perhaps the best proponent out there right now of methodical, well thought-out approaches to trout fishing. Watching their videos has made me rethink why I've been successful in the past and what I need to do in the future. There's always more to learn. 

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.

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