A Spring Morning on a Brook Trout Stream

Wow. I'm ashamed to admit that between all the time I've invested in work, websites, and family obligations, I hadn't made it onto a stream all spring. Until yesterday.

My first business meeting was 2 PM, which gave me time to drive an hour north to a small brook trout stream, a tributary of the S. Br. of the Raritan. I'd discovered this place after a mapping exercise last winter, and fished it in January, and even caught a fish. But this would be my first visit in prime conditions.

Arrived streamside at 9:30...it was full of life. A blizzard of tiny midges by a stone bridge. Tan caddis ovipositing. An ocassional Hendrickson.

Fourth cast with a black elk-hair caddis picked up a lovely 6" brookie from a calf-deep pocket.

I tried to keep fishing the black elk hair, but my early season casting wasn't accurate enough. I can track the black fly if I see it land...but if I'm missing my casts by more than a few inches (and believe me, yesterday morning I was), it's impossible to pick up visually.

So I switched to a parachute adams, since I didn't have any specific Hendrickson patterns. Covered some nice water, similar to where I'd picked up the first fish. Nothing.

Then a tan caddis. Several fish came up, and had a look, but none offered.

So I tried another caddis, this time one with a black body (for the fish), and a tan wing (for me).

Picked up a Dace on the second cast, so decided to stick with the pattern for a while.

Things were pretty slow, but I wasn't sure if it was the pattern or the water, as I'd entered a section with a higher gradient. The pockets were just slightly shallower, or the current was just slightly stronger than where I'd picked up the earlier fish.

After another half hour, whether because the water warmed in the sun, or the gradient eased up a bit, the fishing started to find a lovely rhythm. I'm usually pretty selective about where to cast anyway, and with the minute hand on my watch reminding me I had little time to waste, I became even more selective, casting only to the "fishiest" looking pockets. Now, almost every decent cast stimulated a strike. Nothing big, but usually a brilliantly colored wild brookie, 6" to 7" would be wriggling at the end of my line.

People ask me if I meditate when I fish. I don't, at least not in the way the question is meant. However, I do think when you're alone on a stream like that and in rhythm, the act of fishing is a form of mediation in itself. When it came time to leave, walking back to the car, I realized I felt more "in balance" than I have in weeks.

I needed that.