“Bluelining” is the practice of scouring maps for the thin blue lines that suggest fishable trout water. It smacks of adventure and absolutely reeks of old-West romance — the twin pillars of any alpine fly fisher’s fantasy life.

Tom Chandler fly fishing a tiny alpine spring creek
The lead Undergrounder (me). Don’t I look handsome & virile? (S. Bertrand photo)

After last week’s Stream X adventure, Steve Bertrand and I went looking for fish on a slightly different stretch of the stream, hoping to get there via a different access point.

Amazingly (and “amazingly” is the right word if you ever saw us trying to read a map in a moving car), we ended up at the right place, catching the same skittish brown trout on the same dry flies in the same tiny stream.

Brown Trout: A Many Splendored Thing

Out here, we don’t catch a lot of brown trout, so when you find a stream full of them, you tend to marvel at the color — and the variations between them. In the space of thirty minutes, we landed the three browns below:

An alpine spring creek brown trout
This brightly colored specimen came off a sunny bank

An Alpine Brown Trout
This one even had some rainbow-style coloration (in addition to bright red spots)

An Alpine Brown Trout from an Undercut bank
Steve caught this fish from an undercut bank; he was a muted, chocolate color

Sneaky. You Gotta Be Sneaky.

Any trout raised in a shallow, narrow stream will grow up skittish. Predators loom large on a daily basis, and once a fly fisher’s profile pops up on the radar, the fish run like they stole something.

Steve Bertrand
Steve Bertrand on one of the few “open” sections, doing what has to be done.

You pretty quickly fall into a few predator-friendly behaviors, like fishing from your knees, keeping your silhouette below tree level, and largely staying out of the creek, though the surrounding trees and abundant deadfall usually have something to say about that.

Get Sneaky, and You Could See one of These
Embrace sneakiness, and you might get to see the trout (before spooking them).

The Wild Wild West

The fishing was excellent; Steve and I caught good numbers of browns, though in truth, we both had our moments with the fly-eating trees, leader-vacuuming deadfall, and predator-aware trout.

Of course, the difficulties are offset by the general lack of fussiness on the part of the trout, and if you don’t think the setting justifies a walk (even a fishless one), then you’ve driven to the wrong part of the country — we don’t have many shopping malls up here.

During the trip, we saw a bear, many deer, trout, a hawk, and even a cotton tail rabbit (plus the usual array of birds, chipmunks, butterflies and other bugs).

Another aspect of the Wild West is — of course — humanity, and the group camping at the access point were playing music so loud that you could hear it upwards of 3/4 of a mile away.

Ahh, sweet wilderness.

The Details. The Future.

The equipment and flies involved weren’t too dramatic; Steve fished an older Orvis 8′ 4wt (the softer Orvis tapers are good for this kind of work), and I fished a newer 8′ 5wt Diamondglass rod that was also big fun on this tiny water.

Proof I Get One Every Once in a While
A short cast under the overhanging brush, and viola!

I don’t think fly selection was critical, though a smaller yellow stimulator matched some of the stoneflies flitting about, and that fly worked about as well as could be expected. If you’re headed for water like this, keep in mind your short-range trick casts are more important than fly selection (like your fly box, don’t leave your bow-and-arrow cast at home).

Steve and I each landed a single Brook Trout, and I wonder about the Brookie population in the stream. Could call for more research. Until then, see you on the Alpine creek, Tom Chandler.

[tags]fly fishing, fishing, brown trout, bluelining, small stream, alpine fly fishing[/tags]

Posted in Backcountry, Fishing Report.