Freestone Brook Trout

I had a great outing to a small brook trout stream this past weekend, but I’ve been busy and haven’t had time to post about it until now.

I’ve spent most of my fishing time over the past few weeks exploring some of the nearby spring creeks. While these creeks can offer some great fishing, they’re pretty tough to fish this time of year. Streamside navigation is difficult, with my East Coast nemesis, poison ivy, being replaced by stinging nettles, wild parsnips, and 6’+ tall prairie grasses. The silty bottoms found in these streams make wading an even more unpleasant proposition.

With those difficulties in mind, I decided to set out for the stream I fished my first weekend here. There, at least, I knew I could probably land a few fish without waging constant battle against the local environment.This stream, unlike most nearby, is essentially a freestone, flowing down from the Baraboo Hills, the remnants of an ancient mountains range.

I decided to try a foam hopper, one of my go-to flies for freestone brookies, especially later in the summer. I wasn’t disappointed, and I soon began picking up fish in nearly every pool. This stream is quite small volume-wise, but it forms plenty of deep pools as it moves over the boulders in its path.

In one place I found a large pool alongside a giant boulder. The water moved slowly along the edge of the boulder, where it must have been at least 3 feet deep. I bounced my fly off the edge of the rock and watched as a dark shape emerged from the depths and grabbed it. I ended up landing 4 or 5 brookies out of this pool before the fish finally decided to stop biting.

After catching a good amount of fish I contemplated leaving, but I decided to try one last spot. It didn’t look like anything special, just a small plunge feeding a small pool about 5 feet wide. But when I cast my fly into the current tongue I was met with a surprise - a heavy and hard-fighting brookie.

I was amazed to find such a fish in this stream - ~10” and very fat - the only brookies I’ve caught that rival this one are salters.

It was a great day, and more than made up for my struggles on the spring creeks. We got 3-4” of rain over a period of about 2 hours last night here in Madison, so I think the local streams will be blown out this weekend, but I’m going to head west into the heart of the Driftless in search of clearer waters. If only we could send some of this water back to MA - I know you guys need it out there.