Hello folks,
I do practice what I preach. In my book, “In Pursuit of Trophy Brook Trout”, I discuss how hunting for trophy wild brook trout requires a certain discipline. Today was a great example. My son-in-law and I were fishing a popular Rangeley area river. 6 to 10 inch trout with the occasional 12-14 incher were rising and chasing small emerging brown caddis.
Brian was consistently catching the rising fish by casting his 3-weight with a small Royal Wulff or brown Puterbaugh caddis. He must have caught at least a dozen while I stubbornly kept casting a Cosohammer soft-hackle streamer (white with blue highlights). I was actually casting upstream and letting it drift down with the current and occasionally even retrieving it downstream.
The only positive results were hits by smaller trout once and a while, until a downstream drift on the edge of a fast current garnered a solid strike. After a short but spirited fight, a colorful, very fat male brook trout weighing around 2 and 1/2 pounds slid into the net. It coughed up the partially digested remains of a 4 inch fish as it was being landed.
My only fish of the morning but exactly what I was looking for. This trout was a fish-eater and would have never taken a small dry fly. I caught it because I was persistent in casting a meaty-looking streamer and ignoring the smaller rising fish. I have to admit, another few minutes and I probably would have switched to a dry fly.
A terrible photo, deep in the net, but he flopped away before I could get a better photo – but this is the two pound plus trout I described above. Certainly can’t ascertain his girth from this photo.
The half-digested fish that the trout coughed up during his fight and the streamer he was caught on, next to his previous meal for comparison.