I spent a weekend with my friend Mike, fishing in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. We fished some small brooks and streams that could only be accessed by hiking trails.
We parked the truck at a trailhead just above Lincoln, NH, and hiked down a trail to a beautiful brook. The brook had ice-cold water running over a lot of rocks and boulders. The water was crystal clear and was only a foot or so deep. Several pools along the brook were several feet deep. The bottom of the brook was mostly gravel and sand, which made the water look like cream soda. Approaching the brook required some stealthy tactics so as not to spook the brook trout.
At a distance, it looked like this brook wasn’t holding any fish at all. Truth is, they had a lot of structure to hide under and only made appearances when food was drifting by. So I rigged up a beefy dry attractor/stimulator fly and cast upstream. Letting the fly dead drift downstream, immediately drew some brookies out from under the rocks. It was quite the sight, looking into the clear water and watching these beautiful trout appear from the shadows and smash the flies off the surface.
I caught a pretty little brook trout on the very first cast. My friend Mike, whom I’ve been teaching tenkara, headed upstream to a great spot under a bridge. He caught the biggest brook trout of the day, probably measuring about 8 inches in length.
But we weren’t concerned with catching trophy-size fish; we were looking for wild brookies that survive with no help from man.
They say if the water is holding these fish, then it’s a great sign that the surrounding environment is doing well. Kind of like the canary in the coal mine.
Now is a good time to mention that some of our native/wild fish need our help. There are some great native fish advocacy groups that are mostly funded and served by volunteers. In New England, we have the Native Fish Coalition and some great local chapters of Trout Unlimited. I urge all anglers to support these and other advocacy groups so that future generations will be able to experience these beautiful fish.
So do I enjoy casting a fly to some trophy-size fish in the Y-pool of the Swift River, hoping to land that big fish and take a great picture? Of course, I do, but nothing beats the feeling of hiking through the woods to a remote little brook and seeing a wild brook trout appear from the shadows to chomp a fly, knowing that this fish is the descendant of fish that have been here for hundreds of years.
Next time you are headed out to fish, skip the stocked waters and go to a remote brook or stream. Get lost in the moment and look for that special little fish with the awesome colors because wild brookies are where it’s at.
-Bill Holleran
“Maybe your stature as a fly fisherman isn’t determined by how big a trout you can catch, but by how small a trout you can catch without being disappointed.” – John Gierach