TightLinesBlogzine.com

As the mercury creeps up, I, along with the trout, seek colder waters and shade. Most of my fishing as of late has been just that, small streams where the 7ft 3wt is king. The following report is a combination of two days during last week.

Small stream fishing brings the kid out in me and lets my imagination run wild. My mind transports me to the early 19th century and I can see the settlers crossing the streams or the Abenaki tribes trekking through the woods and meadows with great old oaks and maple trees whispering about the history they have experienced.

It’s so easy to do when you have wild land surrounding you and no signs of civilization

Pop on an elk hair caddis or golden stone dry and start picking pockets.

The guest of honor…

The above brookie was living in this hole…

along with this hog and a few others…

My fishing buddy enjoyed navigating the riverbed up stream and fishing the pockets, dancing caddis or stone and watching for the eruption of a brookie.

You can see how well the brookies match their surroundings in the photo below.

The waters are clear and cool, wet-wading is the way to go when it gets muggy and hot

Next morning. I jump into the stream right were I left off last night, my buddy was to joined me later in the morning. I thought I hit the Hog of the stream the night before but I found this fish in water only 6″ deep!

I hit the pocket and picked up four others the same size as I made my way upstream…

I saw a feeder creek so I went up it a little bit and spotted this little wild brookie fry. Nothing better than brookies managing to remain wild. I know the pic is not that clear, but it was very skittish and I was 6ft from it.

I’m sure others key in on spider webs as I do. They are extremely useful on little rivers like this with dry flies. You get to see what’s the recent hatch, and I like to target them with my offering and jiggle it out to drop into the water like a natural insect would….Sneaky

Looks like a gray drake trapped in this cobweb.

More river Porn….

I found a split in the river and decided to investigate it….Nice looking pools, but do they have fish

It ended up being a series of five pools that still had a trickle running in and out of them. I could see a further split on the away side that was bone dry at the moment. Easy to see how this little river can get angry during high water.
Each pool was loaded with brookies this size.

That last pool shot held the most brookies and the reason was that the depth of the pool was 5ft to 15ft

It was a good call to take the side trek, was getting a bit peckish and scored some cloud berries (a short groundcover raspberry)….I only eat the berries I know….

Next time I will pick up right here.

We caught fish all over the place and had a fantastic time. I plan on walking the river and fishing it as far up as I can this season. I still have quite a bit to go and that’s good as we still have quite a bit of season left