New Find at an Old Favorite

Yesterday I fished a couple of my "Home Waters" - the streams I fish most often. I these streams well, but I still learn new things every time I fish them.

I started out on one stream and didn't even get a nibble, despite good conditions. Maybe someone fished through ahead of me? I've never seen anyone else fishing here, but I don't know how else to explain the lack of bites.

I moved on to the other stream. This stream has given up some nice brook trout over the years, but there s only a short stretch of good trout water - or so I thought. After catching a few brookies from the good stretch, I weighed my options: I could go back to the other stream and try again, move to a different, but likely unproductive, section of the current stream, or go home. I ultimately decided to explore another section of the current stream.

This section begins in a meadow full of thick brush. The only other time I fished here I caught only one trout and spent most of my time untangling my fly from the bushes. I was pleasantly surprised to catch several nice brookies in this stretch.

I took my newfound confidence and forged on to a section of the stream I'd never explored. After passing through a swampy area upstream of the meadow, I saw a beautiful forested ravine. The ravine is well-forested by hemlock and white pine, so there's little undergrowth. The gradient of the stream in this section is much higher than in the meadow, and the water tumbles down through one plunge pool after another - textbook brook trout water.

I spent a couple of hours working my way upstream, picking up a brookie or two out of every pool. The lack of underbrush made for easy casting and my new 2 weight Echo Carbon delivered my dry gently every time.