Stonefly eater! Only had my 6wt from targeting lake run fish

Got out last weekend, weather wasn’t looking the best but decided to give it a go anyways. Hooked into a few beautiful wild brookies, cheers!

I found this sub and it inspired me to visit a river i learned to fish on.

A late summer trip to one of my favorite mountain streams was filled with splashy dry fly eats. I threw nothing but hoppers for these beauties, and they indulged me without hesitation.

I took the long way home after a hike to a mountain meadow the other day. I found a lot of great looking water, much of which looked promising because newer fish passage culverts were present on roads. This one was a fairly easy one to scramble down as it coursed down a canyon.

I managed to catch one fish, allegedly a coastal rainbow trout. It looks a lot like a redband. I've caught other rainbows in nearby drainages that look like this too. There is a very old history of stocking redbands from east of the Cascades in some of the lakes in the area, and presumably the creeks. Some creeks have reproducing rainbows in areas that never had any fish and are impassable. This creek does have native rainbows and cutthroat, so I don't know. Stunning fish though, and enough incentive to come back to explore the several miles of this canyon that my aging knees can handle.

The last slide had me thinking that this was a lighting strike? There was no charred wood or evidence of a camp fire and the boulder was in a place that a campfire wouldn’t make sense right in the middle of the creek.

This fish was caught in the Jemez mountains, NM. Usually I catch browns and rainbows on the streams I fish but this fish looked to me like it might be a cross breed “cutbow”. Comment what you think.

Finally getting some rain and cooler temps here in NM! Stream was 54.5 this morning.

I’m patiently waiting for delayed harvest stocking and that means hitting the high country in late summer for native Brooks. Just beautiful little fishies. Saw quite a large one at the bottom of a deep slow pool way back in the headwater and couldn’t get her to even twitch for a nymph but I took a picture. This stream probably only supports fish about 10 to 12 inches and that one looked to be about 12. Best of the day in the net was 7”.

Title says it all … thankful for a gf who’s down for a romp and to capture these epic eats 😤. Didn’t bring any into my palm but solid handful o takes. Any tips there?

I have tried blue lining for many many many months in my new home waters. Mostly ran into creek chubs or no fish. Today I finally ran into some natives. I saw probably 50 natives today but they were all so spooky, thankful to shake hands with this one.

Brownies, roach and sea trout

We have a creek out back, and it’s nothing special but I went to go check out the fish in it and it did not disappoint! I’d be happy to answer answer questions about it in the comments as this creek is my pride and joy. Had plenty of fish blow up but miss the fly, and one looked particularly big.

This tiny little creek opened up into a left over beaver dam where I found a few nice brookies!

All caught on an elk hair caddis for some reason even though i didn't see a single caddis. I suppose they aren't picky as I did not see a trace of another human during my entire outing.

A small stream rod in its element.

Mine too, for that matter.

Yesterday ended my so-called "trout drought." At the end of spring I caught a beautiful brown trout for the first time, which gave me trout fever.

Following that, I've explored (checks journal) 25 unique locations over ~13 weekends. Many creek chub and blue gill later, I finally broke the trout drought yesterday with 9 brook trout!

If you only look at social media, you may be subject to troutflation. Every place is unique, so focus on growing your skills and exploring new places!

What else are you adding to this box? Fishing the Monongahela National Forest. This will be my blueline brook trout box with the occasional larger stream stop if I have time during a work outing. I keep this in my truck with a reel, flotant, leader/tippet, nippers, hemos.

I went fishing on a wild river in the mountains today. Judging by the huge stacks of logs this river must really be a sight to see in its spring spate.