A brookie a day....

If I were fortunate enough to see a beautiful wild brook trout every day I'd always have a smile on my face.  Maybe.

A new small stream

I had been told by another seasonal CT DEEP employee that a very small stream in a neighboring town had been surveyed and a good number of brookies had been counted.  I went there this afternoon to fish a short stretch right beside a main road and see if this info would translate into me catching any of its residents.  As you can see below, the Ausable Wulff dry was able to fool a couple very nice fish.  With any luck I'll be able to get permission to go upstream through a couple of homeowner's properties and see what is present up in the woods away from the road.

Good news

I have fished this stream a number of times over the last few years and have always caught of few nice wild brookies (and an occasional brown) whenever I have visited it.  However, after the long winter and some serious rains, when I returned this spring I discovered that the structure of the stream had changed dramatically.  I also found that there was no response to my fly offerings.  I was very concerned that the resident population of wild fish had not survived the ravages of mother nature.

When I returned to the stream this week I was very encouraged when an enthusiastic brown pounced on a Royal Wulff dry in the first large pool that I fished.  Further downstream I was able to entice two healthy brookies to take a dry fly (the smaller of which is pictured below).  On my way out I went up a small feeder brook and was rewarded with catching/releasing the largest fish of the visit after it fell for a Usual (second fish below).

I'm hoping that these represent only a small sample of the wild fish normally present in this beautiful stretch of water or at least the beginning of their return.

May fish

Some of the fish that I've caught in May with my Fenwick FF605 glass fly rod.  I've read that this rod is a gas to fish with and I couldn't agree more.

April at last

After catching no fish during March, April has started off nicely.  At a Class 1 stream on Sunday with Alan, I caught my first wild tiger trout.  This aggressive little beast went after a bomber a couple of times, but was finally hooked after I switched to a Picket Pin.  After releasing this beauty a nice brown followed suit.  Although I failed to capture any pictures, I also caught a couple of brookies and another small brown.  It was a rewarding day on the water.

Returning to my roots (sort of)

My first fly rod was a Fenwick FF755, which I purchased in the early 70's.  Because I am not a collector of equipment, particularly if it goes unused for long periods of time and there is something else I'd like to buy, I sold it and purchased a Fenwick HMG GFF755 (which I still have and occasionally use).  Recently I became interested in fishing with fiberglass again and have tried to find an FF755 for a reasonable price.  Although I did find one, for a more acceptable price I found and purchased an FF705 (pictured below).  While it is 6 inches shorter, I'm sure that the experience of returning to glass will be just as rewarding.  Thanks to PayPal it's on its way from PA right now.

A little scouting

Since the weather on Monday was reasonable for a nice walk in the woods, I headed to some state land to scout a stream that Alan and I have talked about investigating.  As is obvious in the pictures, the majority of the stream was covered with ice and I was therefore not able to get any sense of the nature of its pools and riffles.  What I do know is that there is a lot more to explore than what I've shown below.  I'm excited to return when the ice is gone (with a rod of course) and get a better sense of the quality of this stream as a trout habitat.