Trip Report: Trout of All Shades

Yesterday I caught trout of all shades. After finding my first option muddied I assumed my other ideas may be blown out. I headed to a nearby small stream expecting a little stain but found conditions clear. With bright skies my 945am arrival was not ideal. I tied on two feet of 4x tippet and one and a half feet of 5x on the end of my 7.5 foot leader. Using a very small Lightening Strike brand indicator I dragged various small tungsten beaded midge patterns around two and a half to three feet deep. Fish responded well.

Great trout came from thin, often overlooked water. This guy took a size 18 red brassie tied with a black nickle tungsten bead. I fished my way up a little before camping at a ways upstream on a good chunk of water. Fishing has been lights out for me since focusing more on my midge game. My 7' 9" three weight worked ok but with the taller grass I'm finding a 9" three or four weight would be ideal.

This beautiful brookie and brownie took a size 18 gray zebra midge tied with a tungsten bead. As the sun grew higher and higher I had to make more and more impossibly long casts but with each well presented fly it seemed like a fish came to hand.

I wish we had more good brookie streams around here. Out in Montana I had a few spots that were packed with 10-14 inch brookies. This stream is actually pretty similar to that one in a lot of ways, although smaller.

I'm working on my left hand trout photography! This one turned out pretty good. I tied into almost an equal number of browns and brookies, although I did hook more brown trout. At a few points I rolled some really nice fish in the 15-17 inch range including one that looked like a brookie.

 After landing around 40 trout by 2pm I headed back to the car. Before calling it a day I leaned over the bridge though and hooked an aggressive little tiger trout!

This handsome little tiger shot up from the bottom to snatch a gray zebra midge as I pulled it out of the water! Always happy to sight a tiger. Today I'm on call so I'll be tying up a storm and finishing off a 9' four weight. Stay tuned!