The owl I saw on the hike in seemed like a good omen, though I can't claim
being clever enough to outsmart the few trout that were landed. Truth is I was just lucky. Again. The biggest accomplishment of
the morning was just making it to the stream. After a fairly easy
jaunt through the balsams and spruce I had to cross the old (mostly)
dry beaver meadow through waist-deep swamp grasses hiding the
many bone-breaking holes and tangles of sticks and logs of past
beaver workings. Slow going for sure, but thankfully it was cool
enough to wear a jacket and a welcome breeze helped ward off the
mosquitoes.
There was no discernible
hatch on the water, nothing to indicate a pattern to try, but I knew
I'd start with a dry fly. A long time ago an old time brook trout
specialist told me to add a little red to my trout flies, and so the
Dark River was created. It's really nothing special but a pretty
generic mayfly imitation with a bit of red floss added as a tail. It
could be a purist's disdain, but it's caught many local brookies as
well as browns and rainbows in Minnesota's driftless area. But it
wasn't working this day.
I had seen a few
grasshoppers on the way in, so a white post parachute hopper was
given a chance. These little brookies are not tentative fish. They
don't rise from the depths to look over a fly and, if satisfied, sip
it in. No, these brave and unsophisticated fish rocket up from the
bottom of the pool and hit with abandon if they like what's offered.
The hopper worked, with a
blurry photo for proof, but let's see what else will, too. A western
style #14 elk-hair caddis was next and brought a strong strike on the
second cast! Another pretty brookie in the net. A couple more on the
surface before the high sun had me sweating and I realized several
hours had gone by. Several fine hours.
