I had a friend call me up asking me about some good trout streams in the area. We go way back to our running days in college. He is one of the top runners in the nation at the Division III level and is focused on taking the individual Cross Country crown this November. He was looking for some new territory to cover and to get away from a stream he felt was pressured heavily. I told him my recommendations and offered to take him to some of my favorite stretches of water in the area. We decided that Thursday would be a great day to fish with overcast skies and low air temperatures. In the car ride to our first location, I discussed the habitat we would be fishing and some of the fish I have caught on this particular stretch of water in the past. I could start to see Tim’s excitement and he was more than eager to get streamside. Tim had left his waders at his parents’ house, so it was old running shoes and jeans as his means of navigating the stream. Tim is strictly a night crawler fisherman and has this method down quite well. He uses a rather large split shot and what appeared to be size 8 hooks. He would cast upstream and jig the night crawler off the bottom of the stream while gently raising his rod tip followed by a slow retrieve. I was sticking to my favorite Panther Martin that has fooled more than its fair share of big trout over the years. In the first section of stream the bite was slow but with a stream temperature of 60 degrees, I was encouraged and we kept proceeding upstream. Over the next two hours we landed over 40 trout between the two of us. Tim was greeted with a healthy looking 12” brookie, his biggest trout of the season! Tim and I had nothing but grins on our faces the entire stretch reeling in one trout after another. In one hole alone we landed 3 trout over 10.5 inches and our first double.
From 1:00-3:15 I took Tim to the second stretch of water that has produced some hogs this season with my latest trophy a 15.5 inch brookie. At this point, some light rain sprinkled the stream and kept the stream temps constantly at 60-61 degrees and the fish continued to feed excessively. On this stretch I told Tim he should give spinners a try. He was a little reluctant at first but with my success from earlier in the day he was becoming a believer. I needed to make a phone call and told Tim to start fishing upstream. It wasn’t 2 minutes later and Tim had his first brookie on a spinner, a solid 10 incher. We made our way upstream catching a lot of brookies in the 9-10 inch range. There was a brief 20 minutes where the sun peeked out from behind the clouds and the bite was rather slow. It soon fell behind the clouds and a rather large thunderstorm to north was vastly approaching. In the nick of time we reached the best hole of the day. It was a deep hole at least 8 feet deep with exposed roots and an undercut bank. I casted real short upstream and let my spinner slowly fall to the bottom. Before I could start my retrieve, FISH ON! It felt real good and it slowly uncovered itself from the depths below and I was granted with a 12 inch brookie. I told Tim to put on a spinner as all he was catching were chubs with his night crawler outfit. He casted further upstream and nearly at his feet a flash from below smashed his size 4 Panther Martin. After a short battle Tim successfully landed his second biggest brook trout ever! He was ecstatic by its size and girth! I put him into my net while I reached for my camera. With the fish in Tim’s hand we were unsuccessfully able to get a photo before the fish flopped out of his hands and bolted between my legs back upstream. The brookie was just under 14” and his second biggest ever to his 15” brookie which on his wall at home. By this time the thunderstorm was directly above us and it was time to head home. After it was all said and done we had nearly 75 brookies to hand and 6 brookies breaking the 12” mark. We have planned another outing for tomorrow evening and another trip report will soon follow.
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