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Brook Trout Video

We pulled off the highway, off the pavement, and off the map. A lifetime ago, these roads split corn, clover and wheat. They still do. The jeep bounced over rolling hills, seasonal washboard roads and dipped into creek-bottoms to lines of cool aqua-blue that disappeared under canopies of briars and vines. Water trickled off every high bank and bubbled up from the ground and I commented on the cool water as I took my first step into the stream. The rain had been falling for a day and at times poured hard or tapered to a fine mist soaking everything and keeping the creek stained green but the visibility was still good. These are small fertile creeks, no larger than hallways in some stretches with opportunistic trout, wary and wild. A well-placed Stimulator, Adams or Prince nymph can be the ticket but you can’t go crashing up the banks. We pulled 3 trout from the first pool at the bridge. The brookies, which pounced on the dry fly, rose in the confidant “Full Body” signature rise they are famous for and fought with every muscle their 6-inch bodies could muster. The 2-weight throbbed and bounced as the trout thrashed and tried to evade capture. A second to hold the emerald jewels, admire the

worm markings and send them on their way with a shake of the head in admiration. This was going to be quite the day. We crept up the creek in a “leap-frog” pattern, hooking or missing a fish out of every likely holding position. We would comment this evening that the fly fishing had been “Easy.” I could tell that winter run-off and a couple years of bad flooding had changed the course of the stream. However it’s character seemed unchanged and we were off to a great start. Once in awhile, after 6 or 7 Brookies would slash at our fly, a buttery brown, 10-13 inches long would dart out of a downed log or from below the undercuts and put a real bend in the small rod. One particular fish jumped 3 times and I almost lost him in the tangle of roots where he was hiding. Sometimes the creek opened up enough to stand however most of the fly fishing was done from a crouch position and casts were aimed down the “Tunnel” of branches and vines created by the stream. We put a mile or so behind us on our hands and knees, crawled out of the bottom and walked the corn back to the jeep. A car engine was heard which seemed out of place because we hadn’t heard one in hours. In the next valley, we caught more Brookies up to 10 inches and a few Brown Trout in another mile of stream while never crossing another human track. We walked the fields in the fading light, drove over the dirt roads, pulled onto the pavement and back onto the map.