Small Streams, Native Fish, and Memories

Some places, despite a superficial mediocrity, imprint themselves in my memory. There are streams and ponds that I fish from time to time, knowing that there isn't much more for me to learn there. Big strides will not be made. I know I have caught as big a fish as exists in some of these places, or as many species as are there. Perhaps I know these spots well enough to fish them "perfectly". I hate that word, because if perfection in angling ability exists at all it is extraordinarily rare. But there are a few places where I know I can fish as thoroughly and effectively as possible. Why, then, should I return?

My memory works in a manor of association, and being in a place will conjure up every little bit of experience I had there. From there I will journey through memories made in the company of certain people. Then maybe memories about a certain fish species, or a certain animal. Sometimes, I visit a stream or pond not to fish, but just to remember things that make me smile and laugh.

This old iron bridge over a insignificant a frankly quite dumpy central CT small stream is exactly the place where my passion for small stream trout fishing was born. Today was the first time I'd seen it in a few years. The exact date of that this occurred is anybodies guess. I had yet to pick up a fly rod. I knew next to nothing about fishing moving water. All I knew about trout at the time was that they could be found in streams this size.

I would probably not have fished this stretch of water were it not for the fact that my best friend lived just up the road. I mean that in the most literal sense: to get to the stream, we would leave Dalton's house, walk down the dead end street, and follow the remnants of what had once been a continuation of the street down to the slowly disintegrating skeleton of a bridge crossing the creek. Occasionally, as a change of pace, we would leave his home and go straight through the woods, but that was rare. Oftentimes we were accompanied by Bob. Dalton's dog Bob was probably the most pleasant dog I've ever met. He was immensely cheerful, didn't need to be watched, and I don't recall him ever messing up our fishing. If Bob got bored halfway through an outing, he went home. He was never leashed, didn't need to be. There was only one time that Bob did something rude... more on that to come.

The first fish I caught out of the creek was almost certainly a fallfish. We definitely did not know it was a fallfish, I am somewhat ashamed to admit that I was part of the ignorant masses and called them chubs for far longer than I should have.

Fallfish, Semotilus corporalis, in their juvenile form, are frequently mistaken for dace or creek chub. It is a forgivable mistake, they have a defined black lateral line that fades but is still to some degree visible under water in their adult form.

Dalton and I caught many, many fallfish in this stream. Some big, many small. I caught my first on a fly here on an olive Hare's Ear. Most were caught fishing small Panther Martin spinners. That was our go-to lure. It was deadly. Dalton absolutely thrashed me one day with it, catching probably 10 big brook trout including one of 16 inches. That was well after I had pretty much converted entirely to fly fishing, at least on streams, and that beating pushed me to do something I had not done before. A couple days later I came back with an orange, green, and gold Phoebe and caught some exceptional trout. That spring, four years ago I believe, was the only one in which we caught trout with any consistency here. The state have since stopped stocking this stream. It gets extremely low and warm in the summer, but it does have a tributary with wild brook trout in it. Today I payed it a visit. Many a day has been saved by a visit to one pool there.

Today, the three brookies I pulled out of that pool on an x-caddis were all about as beautiful as summertime brook trout get. They were the essence of why I fish for these little cold-water dwelling salmonids. It isn't for a battle. It isn't because they are challenging to fool. It's because they are painted with every color that I'd never expect to see on a fish living in such an environment.

I'd be lying if I said I remembered every single brook trout I ever caught. In the last six years, I have caught an awful lot of them. Some do stick out though, and one that I caught in that same short stretch of stream is one such fish. It was caught after one of the more brutal fishing winters I've experienced. It had probably been more than a month since I had caught a brook trout. There was still more than a foot of snow on the ground that afternoon, but I had seen through the bus window on the way to school in the morning that the water was open, ice free, and clean. I walked to the stream i n waders that didn't fit me, gave myself a severe blister and had to essentially crawl over anything that would require lifting my leg more than about two feet. I caught one fish, just when I thought all hope was lost, on a Floss Pinkie. It was stunning, flanks just glowing in neon purple. I will probably remember that fish until the day I die. 

 Fortunately, what the larger stream lacks in wild trout it makes up for in other native species. Redbreast sunfish made their presence known as soon as the water warmed and the flow dropped in mid to late spring. Today, many were spawning. I immediately stopped targeting the bedding fish when I saw juvenile fallfish swarm the nest of one while I fought, landed, and released one. Though their population in plenty healthy, they are a native fish in a fairly natural habitat and I hate to impact them in that way.

One of the other natives that calls this stream home is the redfin pickerel. These little fish lead fairly secretive lives. When water is high, they will be any place they can't be seen or caught. When it is low, the are about as skittish and evasive as a bobcat.  Today, they were extremely evasive. I spooked many. I fooled and brought to hand only one. But that one was a heavy brute of a redfin. Yeah, they are small fish, even the largest examples of them, but I love them. More so than either of the two larger Esox species that live in CT. 

The reason for that, aside from there strikingly musky-like coloration and ability to live in the smallest, shallowest water imaginable, is that the redfin pickerel and I go way back....

Many years ago, before I ever picked up a fly rod, and before I was even a reasonably adept bass fisherman, I was drowning worms under a bobber in a trout park pond when I caught a world record. At the time, I had no clue what I was looking at. I dropped my bobber in the weedy, muddy, bluegill filled margin, it dunked under, and I pulled in what was only identifiable to my uneducated brain as some sort of pike. I can see it now in almost painful detail. I say painful, because I now know that at 12 years old, I caught, held, and released a redfin pickerel that would have absolutely shattered the all tackle world record. Frankly, I don't care about being recognized, not for a world record. But I wish I had recognized then the magnitude of what I was holding. It was just a novelty then, a surprise catch that I couldn't identify with certainty. I wish I could go back. I wish I could see that fish again. Photograph it. Gawk at it.

Fallfish beds. Tedious work done by very determined fish. 

Redfin pickerel are the fish that set into motion my species quest. Unless you can afford to travel the world it really doesn't make sense to build a life-list if you aren't willing to target very small fish. It takes realizing that just because a fish is tiny, considered a trash fish, or less than handsome doesn't mean it is boring, to turn into a real life-lister.

Crayfish. Crayfish are funny little animals. I have a bit of an irrational fear of getting pinched by crabs, bit by a big beetle, or pincered by a hellgrammite. I'll pick up a very angry northern water snake without hesitation, but when a crayfish wields his claws and spurts backwards as they do I yank my hand away like a complete wuss. I was catching crayfish way before I even lived in CT. The spring spilling out of the hillside below my grandparent's house had them. I found them rolling rocks in Oil Creek and small creeks near Justus Lake. Crayfish were a significant part of my youth way before brook trout were. Turtles, though less significant, exist in a few striking memories. 

Today I found a couple different turtles. Two painted turtles checked me out in different meadow sections. I spotted a small snapping turtle tucked in the rocks. 

   

The first wood turtle I ever remember seeing was in this creek. Dalton and I were headed back upstream after an exceptional session, with some great trout and a surprising number of bass caught. We spotted it crawling on the bottom in probably four feet of water. Never one to avoid a challenge, Dalton jumped right in after it. I wouldn't have done so, but we got to get a close look at that turtle because he was markedly ballsier than me. 

It may have been that same day that Bob abandoned us. We were taking an overland route back. There was a little bit of a clearing in the tree canopy that we hadn't seen before. The first thought: maybe there's a pond there. Always thinking fish. We headed that way. Bob hurried into the brush ahead of us. A few moments later, there was a tremendous commotion. Bob came sprinting back towards us, blasting head first through very thick briers. He passed us at a full gallop as if to say "screw this, I'm outta here", and just kept going. We turned and looked back in the direction we had been going and saw a very large thing blasting through the brush in an arching line past us, just out of our sight. A bear. It had to be. Nothing else is in the woods that's that big and runs that quickly and loudly. Bob was gone, and soon we were following him. 

Things have changed. There aren't trout in the creek anymore. Some new trees have fallen, others have grown. Three generations of fallfish have come and gone. Beavers built dams, moved on, and the dams breached. Bob passed away. Dalton joined the army. 

The stream is still there. Native fish are still there. The memories are still there. 

Cycle and Change

There is a small stream not too far from home that holds the important distinction of being the first place I really truly studied the practices of fishing very small freestone brook trout water. The first house I ever lived in CT just so happened to be nearly atop its head waters. At that time I could certainly not be called a fisherman but I was still a outdoorsy kid, so catching frogs and snakes in that little creek was a frequent activity. The creek's name included the word "river", which struck us as odd being that it almost always went nearly dry in the summer. Of course I was used to rivers being big, slow moving things, creeks being smaller, louder, and rockier, and brooks or runs being that but smaller still. Franklin PA, where I lived my first seven years of life, has a river running not quite through it but past it. The Allegheny, it is called. It is about 250 times wider than this "river" in our backyard. I spent many days catching frogs and crayfish in Oil Creek, which is about the size of the Farmington and still much much larger than this river. In western PA, we would not even have called our backyard ditch a brook, we would have called it a spring. And even though I was catching all sorts of aquatic things in all sorts of watery places throughout my childhood I never thought such a place would be worth fishing.

Fast forward eight years... I picked up fly fishing, got an interest in small streams, and began to see some things in a new light. This little "river" that I had lived next to for a couple of years ended up being one of the first brook trout streams I really discovered. It wasn't in the Angler's Guide. There was no literature. There was no electro fishing data. The only information to be obtained was word of mouth, and that consisted mostly of phrases like "used to" and "back in the day". I was going to have to fish it to find out. And so I did. It was tricky, too tricky for my undeveloped casting skills and non-existent stalking. But on my first visit I did see wild brook trout rising to the first winter stonefly hatch I ever observed.

Between that late winter day and now I have caught a lot of wild brook trout and learned quite a bit on that stream. It was a wonderful place in that it assured complete privacy. It is almost entirely inaccessible if you are of sound mind. Most surrounding land is private and what isn't has no parking and provides you with some of the most painful bush-whacking you could ever hope for. This keeps nearly everyone out. I, however, am not of sound mind. A very powerful little magnet in my frontal lobe occasionally turns on and pulls me through the brush to the stream. This stream's fish are not particularly big. They are not particularly colorful either, with the exception of some of the males in the fall which have some of the most spectacular spawning colors I have seen on CT brook trout. This is an all together typical, small, wild brookie stream. But too me it is special. And that is why I had't been back to it since the summer of 2016. What I found on that last visit hit me in the gut like a wrecking ball. For a stream with a propensity to go dry, it was awfully dry. I have been scared to return since. But today, after I visited a stream that I have fished quite often in the last two years, rather inexplicably, the magnet turned on.

The walk/crawl/stumble/beating to get to the stream was what I knew it would be, and when I got there I saw the same clear, tiny, brushed in stream I expected. It flows through steeply sloped moraine consisting mostly of gneissose and granitic boulders. These rocks were packed in till that the stream cleared out, leaving them in place with big, odd spaces between them. Spaces perfect for brook trout to hide in. Spaces almost impossible to get a fly into. That, and the encroaching undergrowth, make this stream an exceptionally challenging one to fish. It forced me to learn how to get as close to a hole as possible without spooking its occupants, how to bow-and-arrow cast, and how to perform a wide variety of complex, difficult, and unnamed casts. One day I'll write a book about these things. One day. But at the moment something more important was afoot. I positioned myself upstream of a likely plunge, carefully cast my Walt's Worm under a fallen branch, and was electrified when this was met with a sharp pull. A few moments later I was sitting on the bank happily, probably as happy as any person has ever been. No photo. This fish had come out just for me. 

I continued on, catching brook trout here and there. Not too many. Not too big. Not too colorful. There is no doubt that there are fewer fish than there had been before 2016. But small stream populations are cyclical, and in two years if the conditions are normal it will rebound. Change has happened around this stream, the fastest being the result of man. And that is the change that will eventually end the cycle if we aren't careful. 

Right now it doesn't really seem like we are being careful enough.

After I had gotten all I needed out of that little stream I crossed the crest of the ridge it comes down from, went partway down the other side, and payed a visit to another high gradient moraine stream. This one is an oddball. The water and stream bed color is funky, kind of yellow, which is disconcerting because the water is actually about as clear as clear can be. It looks unnatural. Thick mountain laurels conceal the winding path of the creek except where beavers have come in and done their job.

 This stream as more accessible to the general public, but even harder to navigate and fish than it's cousin on the other side of the mountain. I also get a strange feeling there that intensifies the further up it I go. I feel very much like I'm being observed at a distance, every time I go. It eventually gets to a point where I feel that if I don't turn back I will look up from the water to see some disturbing inhuman apparition standing in the brush, pointing in the direction I had come from. Weird goings on are assured for those who spend an immense amount of time in the woods, eventually. Some biological and psychological phenomena occur that we just haven't quite figured out yet. Whatever the creepiness of this stream, it does have some quite nice brook trout and is a challenge to fish, so I keep coming back. Malevolent ghosts be damned. 

Changes are going on right now. The trees are looking fuller, more red. Skunk cabbages have come out of the dirt. It's the middle of February and yet the weather is very much spring-like. Winter stones are hatching but not in the numbers normally seen. What part of the cycle are we in now, exactly?

Flies Worth Saving, Days Worth Remembering

This morning I was going through old and new flies I've saved over the years. I have a lot of them, not heaping piles but enough to show just how much I've fly fished in 6 years. I don't save just any old thing, there has to be a good memory behind it. An exceptional day of fishing, a first of a species, a particularly big fish, or maybe just a serendipitous moment on the water. I decided to photograph some of them to share here since I've not been posting much lately. These are special keepsakes to me. Not a one of them has an unfortunate or sad memory behind it. These are the high points of my many many days on the water.

So I really don't know what I was thinking when I tied this fly, other that that I wanted something worm like. Why the gold tinsel? I have no clue. I don't think I caught more than 10 fish on this fly, but one of them was really special. It was my first trout over 20 inches, a wild brown in my home river no less. That was the fish that really got me. I've caught a lot of big trout since. I will always remember that one though.
flyfishingcts.blogspot.com/2013/12

My first false albacore was a memorable fish, more because of the ridiculousness of the fight than anything else. I've had some memorable fights but none quite as absurd as that one. The fish sounded and charged the boat a minute into the fight, actually going right under the boat and continuing to run on the other side when I caught up to it. Mark Aplert then had to get the boat going and chase the fish so I could keep a backing overlap from stopping the fish and breaking it off.
flyfishingcts.blogspot.com

This rather ruined dragonfly nymph has a very memorable catch behind it. It wasn't my biggest carp, not by a long shot, but the fish I hooked before it had stolen my fly line. I caught a sizable carp on just backing and a short leader. That's pretty wild. flyfishingcts.blogspot.com

This foam humpy was the second fly an 18 inch holdover brown on the Beaverkill ate, was hooked with, and was caught on by me withing 6 hours. At the time that was my biggest trout on a dry, and it was my first nice fish in the Catskills. 

flyfishingcts.blogspot.com/2016/06

This used-to-be Hornberg lived on me hat for a while. It found itself there after it caught me a 15 inch brook trout and a 14 inch landlocked salmon in 6 minutes my first time ever fishing Upper Dam. Two nice fish in a remarkable place in fly fishing history. Very cool, a very much worth saving. That same morning I caught my longest wild brook trout ever in a canoe on my own in Quimby Pond. That was a very cool day. 

flyfishingcts.blogspot.com/2016/07

This fly caught my first, second, third, fourth, and fifth striped bass on the fly. Those fish changed me. I've not been quite the same person since. I'm a bit... saltier. 

flyfishingcts.blogspot.com/2016/08

Some of the most memorable fish I've caught have been oddballs, and the Radioactive Muddle above definitely caught an oddball. flyfishingcts.blogspot.com/2015/08

This little yellow stimulator took what is still my biggest CT wild brook trout at 14 inches. I got to fish with my grandfather, which doesn't happen often, and I caught one of the best fish of my life. Those are special memories.

flyfishingcts.blogspot.com/2016/06

This decapitated sulfur parachute caught my biggest wild brown trout. He was 24 inches, stunningly colored, and well built. I didn't get a photo of him. But I can picture it like it happened an hour ago. It was a huge dry fly fish, a memorable take, and a powerful fight on a fiberglass rod... basically that fish was the essence of dry fly fishing. flyfishingcts.blogspot.com/2017/06

 

This beadhead Picket Pin took a decent smallstream brookie from Maine's backwoods, but that isn't the maine reason I kept it. I kept it because my dad and I worked our butts off to get to a deep spring hole, working way harder than we had a right to to reach the fish. Then we doubled up on the two biggest brook trout in the stream. Mine was a male, his was a female, they were both about 12 inches long. It was an incredibly unlikely moment that I will never forget. 

flyfishingcts.blogspot.com/2016/07

And finally, this. I may never beat the this. Nothing I can think of, aside from discovering an entirely new species, will overshadow this. Not a goliath grouper on the fly, not a 200lb tarpon, not a giant arapaima. I caught one of the last sea run Atlantic salmon in CT on a sz. 14 dry fly and 4x tippet. 

Well, that's that. I'm going fishing.