brookies

brookie

i finally got the chance to do a little bit of wisconsin trout fishing. i didn’t have much time today but i wanted to spend a little of that time on the tomorrow river, thankfully the tomorrow is only about 15 minutes away from our home. so i went there and spent a little time looking over the river (which is gorgeous) and immediately saw a few small brookies. i love brookies. i know they aren’t ever really big but they are very pretty little fish who really pop a dry fly. therefore, i was pretty excited when i saw them. i tied on an elks hair caddis and cast to the nearest brookie. BAM. he popped it. he wasn’t very big, about 8 inches, but he was still my first wisconsin trout and that was exciting. oh brookies are so much fun. i started wading up the creek and ran into a school of HUGE brookies. huge for a brook trout is anything over a pound and several of these fish where probably pushing two pounds. i tried casting a few different nymphs to them. after a few trial and error casts (they were in a very tight spot) and several false raises, one of the large brookies rose to the nymph i was fishing with. i was ready for a huge fight. it was going to be great. so i quickly lifted my rod to set the hook and my leader broke off. snap. the fish and my leader, the only one i had with me, were out of my life. it wasn’t very exciting after all.

still, it was fun and i now know where they are.

SIDE NOTE – on a lark i decided to search for fly fishing and wisconsin fishing podcasts. i found quite a few that i went ahead and subscribed too. my favorite thus far is the fly fishing rabbi. he talks about fly fishing and faith. ironically enough he picked up fly fishing after watching a river runs through it. i say “ironically” because it was reading the book that inspired me to learn how to fly fish. i really liked the first of the rabbi’s podcasts that i have listened to. he is right on target when he describes fly fishing as a spiritual moment. for me it’s not so much a way that i connect to GOD through fly fishing, as it is that the concentration and focusing skills that are a part of fly fishing also relate well to the spiritual nature of our existence. learning how to perceive fish in a stream has truly helped me learn how to perceive the works of GOD.

my run for the day

distance – 9.0 miles
time – 1:39:56
pace – 11:07/mile
weather – 70º