One Run (Big Maine Brookies)

The Maine woods are a contradiction. Though vast and mostly very quiet, much of it is little more than a mono-culture crop. Pine trees grown, then are cut down, then grow again. This keeps them at a level of unnatural sterility, as that's not how woods are supposed work. Luckily its possible to find more natural state forest nowadays, especially in proximity to water. We've gotten a bit better at not wrecking everything and understand that clear cutting a riverbank is an inherently bad idea. The woods Noah and I traversed along a small lake tributary had been allowed to do their things for a good while and were a healthy mix of hard and softwood with some different maturities and a few clear areas where berry bushes and wild flowers grew. The mature trees kept shade on the stream, which tumbled through big pale granite boulders before becoming more sinuous and slow moving at its lower end, with grassy cut banks and deep, dark pools.

It was late September, the very end of the general trout season in Maine, and we were after big, colored up lake run brookies. I'd fished this area before a number of times, once with Noah, but never for the glorious fall season. My late friend Alan Petrucci was very much responsible for my infatuation with the Rangeley Region and for much of my knowledge of where and how to fish it. This particular stream was one of his favorites. I'd fished it before a few times, memorably with my father one July. The resident fluvial brookies were small and scrappy, but left me wanting more. Now, in September, the migratory fish should be showing their faces. Alan had made mention once of an 18 inch male he caught under one bridge on an Edson Tiger. Such a fish in that small, tumbling freestone stream... it was hard to picture but easy to want. 

Noah and I picked our way down, encountered a scattered number of the same small resident fish I'd remembered catching here before. Knowing the nature of migratory fish, though, I understood that the biomass could be very concentrated and isolated to a restricted length of stream. I pushed further and further down, plying deep plunges and long glides. It was relatively fruitless until I reached one particular deep hole. There were sizable fish rolling- not rising for insects, rolling like salmon -on occasion. I worked that pool for a good long while and missed one large fish, but came up empty handed in terms of the sort of fish I was after; just a few more smalls. Ah well, downstream I continued. 

Not that far below that the stream braided. I followed river right, mostly because it was a path of least resistance. A few emblazoned maples overhung the river, dropping some bright orange leaves. I wanted to find some equally well colored fontinalis. I reached the bottom end of the braid I'd followed and looked up the one to its left. Just up it was a classic little run, complete with undercut bank, overhanging tree with a solid root mass, and a perfect seam along the cut. I eased up to the tailout, crouching low both to stay concealed and get the right low angle to shoot casts under the overhanging tree branches. I was nymphing with a Harvey style leader and a single size 8 Ausable Ugly, casting upstream and leading the fly with a gentle bow in the fly line. That was my sighter. There was no need for colored monofilament, long light rods, or fancy little nymphs here. The technical aspects came in the form of perseverance, understanding how to cover lots of water without spooking fish, and narrow casting windows in the brush. I knew that these fish would eat the fly and eat it well, leaving little doubt as to whether I had a take. The fly line would straighten, I'd set the hook. That's exactly what happened. 

I was then treated to one of the most productive 10 minutes of small stream brook trout fishing I've been lucky enough to experience. One colored up, hefty male was followed by another. For a bit it seemed like there might be a nearly endless supply of them in that little tiny run. 

Eventually the onslaught did end, but for a while there I was like a kid in a candy store. An addict of big gnarly char like myself dreams of small stream fishing like this. Of course they weren't really small stream fish, they'd grown to size in a different environment and were entering this small stream environment for purposes of spawning. In the coming days they'd likely continue to push further and further in, especially if rain made a pulse of flow to ride. Migratory salmonids can be there and gone in so little time. I think back to an obsession I developed for large "river run" wild brown trout years ago. I'd found little smolt-like wild brown trout in a tiny tributary stream that didn't have any resident fish of any size, certainly not large enough to be producing these fast growing young ones. I realized they must be coming and going from the larger river the stream flowed into to spawn. I began visiting this little tributary in October and November, hoping to encounter these bigger fish on some semblance of a run. This stream was so small and so short in length from its mouth to the first migration barrier that I knew with certainty that I'd find the fish if I hit it right.

The telling moment occurred one late October time frame, within 24 hours. It was quite cold, frosty even, when I headed out one early morning to pay the stream a visit. I walked it from barrier to mouth with nothing to show for it but a few small brook trout. It was a good baseline, I knew a bit of rain was in the forecast for later in the day and into the night. Perhaps I'd find what I was after the next night. Sure enough, I returned to the water level just starting to drop and clear the next afternoon. I repeated my routine once again. To my surprise, I found a completely vacated redd toward the bottom end of the brook. In just over  24 hours, the fish had come, done there thing, and gone. 

Though not as extreme, Noah and I would come back to this same magic run the very next day and find that it was completely devoid of fish. They'd already moved on. 

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