Last night I dreamt about fly fishing for brown trout. Not one of those fluffy romantic dreams... like a scene from "River Runs Though It" compleat with violin music. But instead, one of those weird ones... which included blue ribbon fly fishing for browns in a flooded creek in the back yard (which doesn't even exist... but it did in my dream; and, the 12-20" browns that were running the creek were a pleasant surprise). After such a bizarre dream, I woke up this morning and it was clear what my day was going to be... despite previous plans. So I slammed a few espressos, tied some flies with shaky hands, threaded up the 5 wt., rebuilt my leader chopped down from previous streamer fishing, grabbed the trout box, some tippet material, a snack, and headed out the door to one of my favorite small driftless area trout streams.
As I neared the destination I was astonished to see new snowbanks... and how high they were! The fields and meadows were blanketed under significant snowfall. And then I remembered, a few days ago the area received a good foot of new snow. My thoughts quickly turned to concern for stream and road conditions. I wondered if the back roads would be accessible; and, would I arrive to a flood and unfishable conditions. But, I drove on in disbelieve of the new snow which had fallen in May... it looked like I was driving to a stream during the special winter season and the whole sight seemed rather ridiculous. Did I mention it's May?
Then, I arrived at the stream. And it was perfect. High but within the banks. Clear, but with some color. Not muddy. Good visibility for flies; but, just enough color to help conceal me from the fish.
I assembled the fly rod. Then, moved the strike indicator to the proper location on the leader. Today, I would fish with a gold-bead prince nymph with a small caddis pupa dropped below it. Unweighted, other than the bead-head on the prince. 5X to the prince. 6X to the caddis pupa. It looked good. I had the place to myself. Wonderful.
I approached the first bend pool and noticed a large rock midstream breaking the current. Just upstream of it was a nice feature... wood. A small tree had fallen into the stream and lay across the bend a few feet below the surface. A good riffle dumped into the pool. I approached carefully, measured my cast, and stripped line from the Abel. I carefully placed the first few casts upstream from the tree--with the thought I would drift over it and by the time I passed it the flies would be at depth when they drifted along the midstream rock. It worked. The indicator darted between the wood and the rock; and, the first fish of the day was on. A beautiful, wild, driftless area brown trout. Then some more casts, same as before; and another fine trout of similar size--about 10 inches. But, as I made more casts there were no longer more trout. I headed upstream.
I picked up a couple more browns in each of the next two spots. The stream improvements looked great and the fish were using them. TU really got this stream right. As I approached one of the improved riffles, a large fish moved out from the shoreline rocks and into the riffle. It pushed a wake from the eddy it was holding in all the way through the riffle until it finally sunk into the head of the pool. Only a very large trout could do that. And my imagination ran wild with the thought of a 25 inch plus trout in the area. But since I spooked it I wasn't hopeful of catching it--trout that big don't get that size by being stupid. And surely the spooked beast knew exactly what I was up to. So, I eyed a nice, long, spring-creek-ooze-of-a-run upstream. It was the kind of monolithic current that looks stagnant if it weren't for the random boils that would appear, indicating its flow. A great blue heron was hunting along its shoreline. But soon, he conceded his fishing spot to the catch-and-release angler.
I couldn't do wrong in this run. About every 3 casts yielded a take... for the next hour and a half. The fish ranged in size up to 13 inches; but, averaged a respectable 10-11 inches. A perfect spot. Mostly midges were coming off the water; however, the trout weren't too into them. A few rises now and then; but, most of the action was happening below the surface. All the takes were on the small green caddis pupa. I imagine the flies were fishing about half way down or somewhere in the intermediate depths. The trout were really locked into this presentation.
All told I must have hooked 30-40 trout in the two and a half hours I was on the stream. I landed at least two dozen, though I wasn't really counting. An hour into it my temperament soon synced with the pace of the stream. The slow, laid back ooze of the spring creek. The twitch of the indicator. The sound of the great blue heron flying over. The chattering pair of osprey perched above the stream. The newly arrived warblers busy on the ground turning over leaves in search of food. The swirl of midges above the stream. The occasional mayfly. The swoosh of a swallow. The riffle bubbling downstream. A lone gunshot in the distance indicating a successful spring turkey hunt. And a whole lotta trout. I'm reminded why trout fishing is such a healthy addiction.
Ahhhh, dreams every now and then do come true... and the reality can only be made possible by putting in the effort.
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