Despite receiving well over an inch of rain throughout the area streams were dropping and clearing throughout the day. I got off work at 2ish and was on stream by 330pm. I checked out a different section of the stream I'd fished on Tuesday but found conditions less than optimal (dirty water). I headed to a stream that always clears quickly after rain. With sunny skies and windy conditions I was unsure how it would go. I fished with a 9ft 4 weight built on an older generation graphite blank which has a slower action. It was tough to toss in the wind but it worked well enough.
Right off the bat I landed this decent little brownie on a size 14 skittering caddis. I was casting the fly down and across, letting it swing into the current, then twitching it back upstream. Some fish jumped out of the water for the fly while others chased and nipped at it.
Plenty of browns came to hand. This stream has a decent population of both browns and brook trout. As I worked my way downstream I noticed that browns seemed more focused in faster water while brookies appeared near tailouts.
I'd caught one tiger before much further downstream where there aren't many brookies at all. I fish this stretch wtih some frequency and have always thought conditions were good for tiger trout.
This handsome trout took the skittered caddis hard. A tiger trout is the sterile offspring of a brown trout and a brook trout. They are not stocked in the driftless and indicate that both brook trout and browns are naturally reproducing in this creek! By 6pm I was back in the car and headed home with fish stink on my hands:)
where did you catch this
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