We're back from a place we might visit again...

The stream was high and the mosquitoes were so aggressive I was afraid that Wayne Eng — who’s so skinny he always looks to be in the midst of his own personal famine — might be drained of blood to the point he’d lose consciousness and I’d have to carry him back to the truck.

Fortunately, that didn’t happen.

What did happen was that many brown trout were caught on dry flies, making this the first wildly good day of the season for me.

I’m chalking it up as a victory.

More to come on this one.

See you receiving a blood transfusion, Tom Chandler.

Very high.

Still, the water was clear, and you can choose to get cranky about the high flows, or you can revel in the knowledge you’ve found one of the few potentially fishable streams in the county.

It's running high, but clear. Gift, or bust? (hint: read on)

I opted for Choice #2.

Revelry got a lot easier just two casts into the trip; I hooked and landed a 12″ brown trout – a far better-than-respectable trout in this water.

A few minutes later, a 10″ brown trout got frisky with my #12 Stimulator.

The water is high, but the brown trout are willing. This is good.

“Ok,” I told myself.

This high water thing is usually bad, but this time it’s OK.

Helping that impression along is the largely water-starved nature of this stream.

Simply put, it was nice to see some water in it.

Traditionally, it’s fishable only in spring; later in the year, diversions tend to be hard on the flows and the trout population.

In fact, I wondered if three years of drought hadn’t hammered the juvenile brown trout recruitment rates (brownies spawn in the fall).

Out of the ten I hooked, only one fish was under 8″ – a fairly dramatic reversal of “normal” for this stream.

One brown trout buried himself in the grass, but like an ostrich, left something showing...

Given my deep and abiding interest in pure science, I plan to continue this research at the first opportunity (no need to thank me for my selflessness).

My time was limited (about three hours fishing for two hours of driving – a slightly better than break-even proposition), though after the first couple fish, I fell into that familiar pattern where you’re far more concerned with how you’re going to fish the next pool than you are the state of the economy (even your personal economy).

It’s one of the reasons we fly fish, though we never seem to realize it at the time, which I suppose is kinda the point.

"Should I feel like a putz, or what?"

The Fish Stuff

I fished an 8′ 5wt Diamondglass fiberglass fly rod – a truly supple, wonderful, seductive fly rod you’ll end up cursing if the wind gets too strong.

The wind only blew up towards the end of my trip, so I maintained a mostly family friendly atmosphere, which wasn’t the triumph I’m suggesting (I never saw another person).

I tied on a #12 Stimulator at the start and fished it most of the time, and given the fly-eating-tree-rich environment, I didn’t miss the spool of 4x tippet I forgot to buy after my last trip (I fished 3x instead, and at times, I was pretty happy about it).

A fair picture of the "normal" level of difficulty. Not real hard, but not so easy you could forget for even a minute...

This is hardly the toughest stream I’ve fished, but it is one of the sneakiest; every once in a while it throws an easy stretch at you, dulling your predatory edge and causing you to toss your next five backcasts into a tree.

At least that’s my current working theory (it’s not possible I’d ever screw up on my own).

The high, clear water also presented something of a trap for unwitting fly fishermen (well, one of them anyway).

Several times I found myself wasting time on a gorgeous-looking stretch of water, only to realize it didn’t hold fish at “normal” flows, so it wasn’t all that likely to hold trout during high flows.

Sure enough, all my trout came from the runs and pools that routinely held fish, while the normally barren-but-fishy-looking edge sproduced nothing (apparently I’m a real sucker for submerged grass lines).

At some point, I may get this predatory fly fishing stuff figured out, but then again, I may not, which may also be kinda the point.

The Snake Stuff

I ended my trip on a meadow stretch, which is pretty as hell, but tough to fish. For those keeping track, meadows offer unobstructed backcasts, but compensate the trout with unobstructed views of approaching fly fishermen.

Oy, the wildflowers...

Wildflowers were blooming, and the stream was running high enough to flood the meadow, which made knee-walkiing like a sneaky bastard largely impossible. (With the water already more than knee deep, knee-walking would have felt suspiciously like swimming.)

I did manage to practically step on a snake that I immediately identified as a Deadly South Pacific Coral Snake, though later – while I was looking for a place to have my heart attack – it occurred to me it may have been a simple Garter Snake pretending to be a Coral Snake.

It seems the reptiles get trickier every year.

See that dark green line in the background? That's the stream.

In simple terms, it was a beautiful couple of hours on a beautiful stream, and if you subscribe to the thinking that record snowpacks and fast-warming temperatures probably will dampen the fly fishing, it was also something of a gift.

The stream was high but the bonus-sized brown trout were willing, and coming on the heels of one of those probing family discussions about money, time, work, the future and Little M’s college fund, it was probably more winning lottery ticket than simple gift.

See you on a small stream (but not this small stream), Tom Chandler.

Fortunately, fly fishers enjoy an abundance of the fluffy faithy stuff, so when I pitched Steve Bertrand on the idea of driving to a potentially blown small stream instead of a known-to-be-fishable big river (fully equipped with big trout), he didn’t really hesitate.

Today, Bertrand gets the corner office.

That the stream – known to fish well in the spring – was entirely clear and only a little high was what we’ll call “icing” on a springtime cake that’s offered precious little in the way of sweets to us in the mountains.

Last night, it snowed yet again at Trout Underground/Man Cave World Headquarters, and a thin layer of snow dusted the surrounding hills this morning.

While the immediate mental health implications are the subject of much discussion here at TU/Man Cave Headquarters, the larger runoff implications affect every fly fisherman with an itch to fish northern California.

In essence, the runoff event – which by this time last year was already peaking – hasn’t really begun yet.

In other words, the whitewater folks are going to be far happier this spring than the Upper Sac’s fly fishermen.

This Particular Small Stream

Even though the Upper Sacramento’s immediate future looks a bit grim, this particular stream is (happily) entirely fishable.

More importantly, fishing it was entirely enjoyable – especially to an overworked, under-slept marketing consultant who’d been jonesing for a small stream experience.

The meadow stretch (we weren't consulted on the vest color)

I’d suggest the fishing on Stream Z is about two weeks short of its peak (Editor’s note: that number is pure guesswork – the kind of thing fly fishermen say when we want to appear more knowledgeable than we are).

Even though the fishing wasn’t wide open, the following is true: When a handful of brown trout hurl themselves on your dry fly with the zeal of a small-but-doesn’t-know-it predator, the fishing’s plenty good enough.

That you get to fish a freestone portion of the stream and a gorgeous meadow stretch on the same day is a simply a bonus – a benefit of a little time invested in exploration.

The Numbers

In four hours of fly fishing (and eating) sandwiched between a couple hours of driving, I managed to hook better than a dozen trout, though I landed less than half of them.

While my 8′ 5wt Phillipson Peerless bamboo fly rod was an ideal tool for dealing with some wind and the odd big fly, it was a bit strong for the 5″-9″ trout we caught.

In fact, I launched a couple on the hookset.

The Trout Underground's typical Hero Shot

It’s not the rod’s fault of course. The guy on the fat end of the rod might have been a little rusty – and a little anticipatory.

Later, when we fished a meadow stretch of the stream which demanded longer casts, offered faster wind and held bigger trout, the Phillipson seemed perfect – maybe even a little soft for the longer hooksets.

Which probably means the Phillipson was the perfect rod for the trip.

I think Bertrand – whose numbers were similar – fished an old Redington 8.5′ 3wt, a fly rod he suggests has earned a place among the best small-stream rods ever made.

It turns out these distinctions are important to fly fishermen.

The real key, of course, is to fish a rod capable (in your hands at least) of making all sorts of odd slack line casts. Puddling the leader remains the best way to get a drag-free

The Future

Stream Z fishes best in the spring, and in fact, I only fished it once in the summer, and never went back.

Given that I’m a slow learner – and find adapting to new situations difficult – it’s likely I’ll head back to Stream Z a couple times over the coming month, if only to see if my “two weeks” estimate is accurate (Ed’s Note: he’s totally winging it at this point).

See you on a small stream, Tom Chandler.

Now he gets to fish the Upper Sacramento all winter long (which is good, because it runs right by his home), and Wednesday, he was very, very happy the fishing season extends year-round. Why? Here’s 27 great reasons…):

Bigger than life? Wayne Eng's 27" of Upper Sacramento Brown Trout happiness.

That’s an Upper Sacramento Brown trout which Wayne suggests taped out at 27 inches. That’s two-seven, Undergrounders. On a river not exactly known for its populations of monster brown trout.

He caught it on a (ta-da!) black woolly bugger – at a time when the rain and snow melt were just starting to drive higher flows and murk the water a bit – an awfully good time to go headhunting.

Still, these kind of fish have a tendency to appear in the winter, and you’re often left to wonder exactly where the hell they were all summer.

Hiding at the bottom of a deep pool? Living the high life in Lake Shasta? Lacking a hideously outsized government research grant more information, we’re not sure.

But at least we know the things exist.

See you at the fly bin, Tom Chandler.

The brown trout in Stream Y remain gorgeous (if a little uncooperative)

That’s why – when older (less handsome) bro called – I thought we could go back to Stream Y, even though I hadn’t fished it since spring.

Between then and now, the great circle of life had rotated some, which is a really nice way of saying too goddamned many cattle were allowed to graze the place, and parts were barely recognizable.

The lush, green shores of Stream Y had been chewed down to dirt, and the gnarled remnants of young cottonwoods and aspens dotted the banks. In places the bank had been trampled into the water.

And yes, a couple bazillion metric tons of cow flop decorated the place, which meant we were visited by a lot of flies, and I was properly thankful the buggers didn’t bite (unlike the mosquitoes from my earlier trip to Stream Y).

What’s sobering is this: Stream Y suffers less damage than a lot of little streams. In fact, this is probably a model of conservative management.

That, my friends, is an unpretty thought.

Tricky. You had to be tricky.

Spooky Little Trout Like You

The cattle damage was irritating, but the real impediment to catching brown trout wasn’t the flies or cow flop or cows – it was the low flows of August.

The trout – whose existence was laid bare to the skies by trickles of crystal clear water – were spooky to the point of insanity. (Which is to say they made me insane. I’m sure they were fine.)

I once crawled up to a stump, poked a couple inches of human head around it (the sun was in front of me, so no shadow), and watched a half-dozen brown trout turn and swim away.

Mortifyingly, they didn’t even flee in terror; they casually swam away, probably because they didn’t consider anything so clumsy a legitimate predatory threat (over the course of my life, many women seem to have agreed with them).

To his credit, Older Bro – a relative newcomer to the sport of fly fishing – adapted quickly to trout so spooky you had to basically not be there in order to catch them:

Older Bro learns fast (Mom will be so proud)

Fortunately, every population has its bell curve, and over the course of the trip, I found a dozen brown trout that clearly existed on the “dumb” or “incautious” shoulder of the curve.

Older bro hooked up with several, and landed two – real trophies in a situation where even a real small stream expert could find himself fishless for long stretches of time.

The Fishy Details

Like my earlier trips, the fly fishing didn’t turn on until mid-day; until noon, we’d get an eat here and there, but also experience long stretches where really, really pretty water didn’t produce so much as a refusal.

Small streams are like that, and the portions of humanity that expects things to happen on their schedule doesn’t always cope with those moments with what you’d call grace.

Fortunately, I’ve weeded out the partners that fish with a sense of entitlement instead of a goofy sense of wonder.

When the fish aren’t eating, you either keep fishing, or bank sit for a while.

Normally, I also invest that time taking photographis, but in truth, I just didn’t shoot too many images this trip. Some days you’ve got it, and some you don’t.

The Fly Fishing Stuff

We chose to change flies and keep fishing, though in truth, we found little difference between a parachute Adams, a small stimulator, a Humpy – or any of the other flies we tried.

Later in the day, I tied on a Ak’s Hopper pattern on the off chance it would attract bigger fish, and for a time, it seemed to. Overall, my big winner for the day was the Underground Fave Beetle Bug, though I caught plenty of fish on a horrifying, tinselly Red, White & Blue version of a Royal Wulff.

The Brown trout were pretty, but weren't sporting their spawing colors yet...

Stream Y’s brown trout may be spooky, but they lack a well-developed aesthetic sense.

Older Bro – who owns a typical 9′ 5wt graphite rod – fished my 8.5′ 4wt Diamondglass for the first time, and yes, those “aha!” moments you read about actually occur in the wild; he took to the slower taper like an Osprey takes to a fish hatchery.

This isn’t a knock on graphite, just another observation of that bell curve thing; some of us were made to fish slower rods, and some of us weren’t.

I fished an 8′ 5wt Diamondglass – a rod so slow, so even-tempered that it brings great joy every time I cast it. It’s the less-likely-to-make-me-cry-when-I-break-it-in-the-brush version of my 8′ 5wt Phillipson bamboo fly rod, which I was kinda sorry I hadn’t fished.

Regret, it seems, isn’t solely the province of politicians and televangelists who get caught.

People love flower pics (right?)

So maybe you can go home again, though if someone runs cattle in your house while you’re gone, better get ready to return to a wreck.

I was tempted to drive over to Stream X, but realized there wasn’t any percentage in doing so; it wasn’t going to look any better than it did when I fished it in the spring, and it was probably going to look a lot worse.

Still, the Underground’s Small Stream jag seems set to continue; I simply can’t get enough of the trickles.

See you on the small water, Tom Chandler

Still, when the pictures arrived in Ian Rutter’s email, I immediately knew the truth. The Ugly Truth.

The one that got away, but came back to kick my ass a second time.

One of my largest big fish stories was about to come back and haunt me, and that even as it lay dying of old age, the giant trout surfaced one last time (belly up), and flipped me the metaphorical middle fin.

Sometimes, big fish suck.

The Backstory

Several years ago, I flew to East Tennessee for a weeklong “fly fishing, and nothing but” trip – normally cause for much rejoicing. Sadly, I was ill – the kind of “ill” that would normally put your on your ass for a couple days.

I’d love to cast the trip in heroic terms – our lone, chiseled hero battling millions of evil viruses intent on bodily domination – but the truth is less gratifying.

For starters, I lost the battle. Before I even got on the plane.

Once in Tennessee, I coughed continuously, metronome like (every five seconds). Sleep eluded me entirely the first few nights, and life got progressively more surreal, and after the first couple days of fishing, I clearly (in retrospect) lacked the ability to drive (if the alarm on fishing buddy Rich Margiotta’s face was any indication).

Still, you don’t miss a float trip with Rich Margiotta and Ian Rutter, even if you’re barely able to spell your own name.

And thus the stage was set.

With the Clinch’s blanket Sulphur hatches years behind us, I ended up throwing a big streamer, looking for one of the Clinch’s monstrous brown trout.

Early in the day, I’d found one, but in classic Chandler fashion, was too dense to recognize it. In fact, just after a “normal” sized rainbow trout turned away from his pursuit of my streamer, a much, much bigger brown trout rolled right in behind it – and stuck his nose on the tail of the streamer.

If you haven’t seen it in person, you have no idea how electrifying an event it can be. Unfortunately, I didn’t see it in person – I was captivated by the small rainbow swimming away.

Meanwhile, Ian’s in the middle seat making strangled noises, and I’m standing dumbly in the front, wondering what all the fuss is about.

“Strip!” he yelled, and I said “Why?” and pointed at the little rainbow. “He’s nowhere near the streamer.”

As Ian turned red and the veins started popping out, I kinda wondered if he didn’t need to calm down. You know, relax a little.

Then I saw the brown trout. And – successfully I might add – didn’t soil myself.

Naturally, that brown trout didn’t eat the streamer, and just as naturally, this isn’t the big fish story. This what we literary types call foreshadowing.

The big fish story came later. Much later. About the time I was approaching an unconscious state.

The Real Big Fish Story

We all saw the gout of water that shot up near some flooded timber. I thought a beaver had flipped out, but Ian knew it was a big brown trout, and because he threatened to throw me in if I didn’t act quickly, I somehow got a cast off in the general direction.

The trout charged the streamer, but because I’d lost my sunglasses just before the Tennessee trip, I didn’t see it.

The trout actually ate the streamer, but I didn’t see that either (see above).

The line went a little spongy in my hand, but by that point in the day, I’d pretty much lost the will to live, and simply kept stripping away (and coughing).

The then trout un-ate the streamer and turned broadside to the boat (I didn’t see that, but Ian sure as hell did), and both Ian and Rich stopped breathing.

That was my big fish.

Ian described him as a “zero to hero in thirty seconds” trout, leaving me to ponder how he really felt about my numerical status in life (zero?).

Naturally – whacked from zero sleep and too much cough syrup – I didn’t care all that much, figuring the fish was only seventeen inches long.

Now – a couple years later and 80 yards away from My Brush With Big Fish Greatness – this floated to the surface:

That's Ian with 34" of big, dead-of-old-age brown trout.

He was dying (presumably of old age), and yes, Ian measured him and he was 34 inches long.

That’s almost three feet of big dead fish regret.

Of course, I have no way of knowing if that was my big trout – it’s not as if it was wearing my wristwatch or anything.

Still, Ian – who’d actually seen the thing the first time – gave me better-than-even odds, and I realized that some people can be downright mean without even realizing it, though it’s possible he thought he was doing me a favor (the seven stages of grief apply to losing really big trout too).

Perhaps some people find closure useful.

Still, I don’t blame Ian completely for my lost fish (a really caring fishing buddy would have beat the thing to death with an oar while I was busy not setting the hook), and yes, I’m still grasping for a moral.

Maybe it’s that fly fishermen produce big fish stories the way Paris Hilton produces photographic moments, but hell, we didn’t need a big, dead brown trout to know that.

Maybe it’s this: It’s possible that the bigger the fish in the story, the greater the chance the story’s actually true.

Either that, or my original thought holds: Big fish suck.

See you (crying) on the river, Tom Chandler.

Fly fishing is something we engage in for reasons of fun or sanity instead of revenue or food gathering, so in other words, it’s an emotional thing, which allows us significant latitude when we talk about it.

He lives miles away, but he's on his home waters.

For example, the concept of “home water” clearly isn’t geographic in nature, but a matter of the heart.

One fly fisherman can tell another his “home waters” are literally halfway around the globe, and the second fly fisherman won’t bat an eye.

That’s because his “home waters” are a five hour drive to the north (the last ten miles on dirt roads), and while humanity is generally poor at accepting alien perspectives, fly fishermen do sometimes make worthwhile exceptions.

That’s why I tend to seek out smaller, wilder waters even though I live on a beautiful freestoner. It’s not because blueline fishing is “easy” (for the record, nothing’s easy when you’re fishing from your knees or crawling through bushes).

It’s because the fishing is – to leverage a pair of overused words – intimate and predatory at the same time, a combination I find irresistible.

A Brown Trout just after he made a mistake.

The Latest Small Stream Experience

Which leads us to the actual small stream fishing report (not the fictional version posted here), where I invited Singlebarbed along to serve as bait for the hordes of mosquitoes while I fly fished.

It only partially worked.

In fact, it didn’t work at all; the mosquitoes were on us like makeup on a politician the second we opened the truck doors, and I’m not even going to try and describe the horrific events that followed when I whizzed in the woods prior to throwing on my waders.

I’m having a flashback just writing about it.

Singlebarbed quickly doused himself in gallons of his vintage Muskol repellent – a product made from 100% Deet. A highly effective mosquito repellent, it’s become clear that DEET works by altering your DNA to the point that mosquitoes no longer recognize you as a mammal.

That reduces the number of bites by a considerable portion, but your friends will wonder why you’ve got another hand growing out your elbow.

It’s a trade off, but when the payoff is a small stream, a lot of trick casts, and a few willing brown trout, I’ll take mutation any day.

Blah Blah Blah Small Stream.

The fishing itself wasn’t dramatic, but it was – for want of a better term – pure. The casting was difficult, the fish gorgeous, and the setting unreally pretty.

Can you see him? That's an 8" trout.

I rarely see photographs of myself fly fishing (I’m usually taking the pictures), but when most every picture shows you hunched behind a bush or casting from your knees, you realize you’re reverting from “civilized behavior” (which isn’t very civilized at all) into a predator – without really noticing it.

The result was a fishing trip where you stop your pursuit of trout every few minutes to appreciate what you’ve submerged yourself in, and even then you still can’t quite grasp it.

Sometimes it’s almost as if you’re an actor in an unbelievably boring (to the world), wildly perfect movie, as if perfection can’t be achieved in every day life.

Fish Parts

This fishing itself wasn’t that dramatic, and rather than risk repeating my recent small stream reports, I’ll simply say this:

The fishing was largely good, though like most small streams, it turned on and off suddenly.

A rare Underground fiberglass fly rod photo (we're only human).

We arrived a little too early, and one run yielded exactly nothing. Two hours later we passed the same run, this time mining it for six pretty brown trout.

It’s easy to fall for the hype (anti-hype?) that small stream fish are dumb and easy – eating everything that floats by – but the truth lies pretty far from that statement.

Like anything almost perfectly in tune with their environment, they dance to a tune that us clumsy, smelly humans have largely forgotten (or are simply ignoring).

Fish Parts 2

I can’t explain it in explicit terms, but it’s clear I’ve become fascinated with pictures of brown trout parts. Like most trout, they’re more colorful than they’d seemingly need to be, and while I won’t say I’m tired of rainbow trout, I can say the brightly colored brown trout offer a nice break from silver.

What color exactly would you call that?

Sure, he's upside down, but check out the colors.

Wave good-bye.

The Fly Fishing Itself

The fishing itself was alternately too hard, too easy, too frustrating and too overwhelming to write about.

Befitting our shared status as geezers, Singlebarbed fished an old Fenwick HMG fly rod (8.5′ 5wt), while I dragged out my old-style Diamondglass 8′ 5wt – a rod so sweet you could descend into a diabetic coma just by waving it.

Authentic Geezer Gear (I'm starting a new fly fishing line by that name)

And I won’t even bore you with fly selection (though Humpies are our friends).

The bite was damned slow in the morning, but picked up midday. In truth, you don’t need high-end gear or boxes of flies to fish a small stream, but you’d better come equipped with a good roll cast and a great deal of accuracy.

See you on your home waters, Tom Chandler.

Bye!

The water was pretty, the fish were willing, and the bugs intense.

The last described me pretty accurately, though I wasn’t completely aware of it until Curtis Knight of CalTrout asked me how often I was fly fishing the McCloud these days, and I realized the real answer was “hardly at all.”

The last couple seasons I’m more likely to hike into a small lake or stream, and while I’m sure years of psychoanalysis would uncover the root cause of my affliction (perhaps I had a bad experience with a big trout when I was a child), I’m actually pretty content to wallow in my neurosis – especially when it involves a lot of brown trout that seemingly can’t say no.

The more battered a humpy gets, the better it fishes.

Following hard on the heels of my semi-successful trip to Stream X, Elderly Underground Friend & Alert Reader Jim Troyer and I found ourselves exploring water I’d never fished before (let’s call it Stream Y).

It turns out that exploration is good.

Every run on this tiny stream held at least one eager brown trout (sometimes many eager brown trout).

In fact, the action started on the second cast, and never really let up.

Simply put, it was the kind of day you tell yourself you’ve earned via all those other ugly days, though you know deep inside that would only be true if you’d been attacked and killed by wild animals on all those other trips.

To say too much more is to gloat unnecessarily (the Underground doesn’t gloat, we report). And yes, if it makes you feel better, the mosquitoes were intense – to the point that multiple applications of insect repellent were needed (for godssakes don’t breathe the stuff), as were lots of coverups.

In fact, the slightly built Troyer was at several points in danger of being carried off by hordes of the vicious bloodsucking beasts.

You can know that mosquitoes are part and parcel of the backcountry in spring, but that doesn’t mean I have to like or even accept it (suggesting that stubbornness is a another lifelong “phase” for me).

More Brown Trout Body Parts

This time, I caught no Brook trout, though the vibrant paint jobs on the brown trout meant I wasn’t too disappointed:

A neon scaled banana? One of my brightest brownies.

Cars would still have fins if they looked this cool.

One of those darkly pigmented brown trout that looks like it lives in a cave.

More Fly Fishing Gear Stuff

The bottom line on the fishing? I fished my Diamondglass 8.5 4wt, while Troyer got along nicely with an older 8′ 3wt Redington.

As often happens on small streams, the fish weren’t selective to flies – until you tried something new. Then they’d stop eating, and you’d think they were selective until you compared notes with your buddy, who was fishing a fly pretty much the exact opposite of yours.

For the record, a dark caddis did a lot of damage, as did a Beetle Bug and humpies. The small stimulator didn’t fly. That’s really all I know.

I also test-flew the new Korkers wading boots, and there’s plenty more to be said about these interchangeable-sole critters.

More Fly Fishing Soon

It’s been an odd week, and yes, I even wasted a couple hours on a media gig that couldn’t have turned out much worse, but this weekend may find me wandering around the backcountry yet again, though I wouldn’t necessarily make book on Stream X or Stream Y.

Maybe I’ll do both. I hear the fishing’s pretty good.

See you on the couch streamside, Tom Chandler.

p.s. – No, I’m not telling. But it’s right at the end of this path:

Stream X? No. Stream Y.

See? Small streams can be hard work (let the pity flow, Undergrounders).

More coming soon, though I’m out of here at midday to talk to another film crew about the Official Sleazy Mega-Corporation of the Trout Underground: Nestle Waters of North America.

See you on TV, Tom Chandler.

The catch? I’m too busy to write a lengthy report (like last time I skipped out and ran to Stream X). Instead, I’ll hit the highlights in between the pictures.

Spring Creek? Brown Trout? Dry Flies? Sign me up.

Stream X is a small, alpine spring creek, and it’s the kind of place the enforces a certain intimacy between the fly fisherman and the trout.

It’s nicely populated with wild brown trout (and the odd rainbow & Brookie), but features rough roads and enough mosquitoes to suggest the existence of a vengeful god.

Like all small streams, the trout aren’t particularly selective, but they are damned spooky, and this – simply put – is not the best stream for a novice, but I brought my relatively new-to-fly-fishing brother there anyway (suggesting the existence of a vengeful brother, bent on payback for the emotionally scarring cherry incident of my childhood).

Think sneaky. Sneaky is good.

Unlike my last visit, the stream was running at normal levels, but the weather was eerily similar; it started raining the minute we arrived (after a lot of bouncing around on some auto-unfriendly roads), and alternated rain and sun all day.

It was also colder than I would have guessed, and once again, the Patagonia soft shell jacket proved the perfect jacket for the gig – a good lesson in packing, since I’d almost left it behind (it’s summer after all).

In fact, fingerless gloves wouldn’t have been out of place.

Welcome to the mountains.

Predictably, the early bite was slow. Equally predictably, the early scenery was stunning.

Even when the trout aren't eating, the scenery's working.

The Fishy Stuff

Later – as it warmed a bit – the bite got a little better. In the afternoon, there was even the hint of a small mayfly hatch, and (gasp) rising trout.

Almost everything you catch is a brown trout, which range wildly in coloration. Some are a burnt-butter brown while others feature a lighter, milky yellow color, and still others offer a golden metallic sheen.

Some brown trout look like golden butter - their scales would look perfect on a stack of pancakes.

Some feature slightly washed colors, others offer up bright red dotted flanks that – if found on a painting – would lead a non-fisherman to accuse the artist of artistic license.

"I'm ready for my closeup now."

Is he giving me the fin?

Every once in a while, you also come across a Brook trout (the Official Char of the Trout Underground), and yes, the Underground’s veins fill with naturally produced chemical pleasure at the sight of the Brookie, and I’m not even sure why. Maybe it’s the colors.

Underground Fave Char: the happy pappa shows off his Brookie

Why so many colors? The Brook trout continues to impress.

The Non-Trout Stuff

The first couple hours found us catching one trout each (it picked up later, and we ended up with 10 between us). Which means we had plenty of time to marvel at other things, including a couple close encounters with deer, and even a very low flying eagle.

Then there was the stuff that wouldn’t run away when you found it, including:

My brother identified this as Columbine. It's pretty.

Proof of rain?

He's hairy, and he's cool.

We found one of these- an olive stonefly

The Hard Facts About the Fly Fishing

The fishing itself wasn’t what most would call “technical,” though when you find yourself crawling towards a ten inch fish on your hands and knees – and trying to thread a backcast through a narrow hole behind you – the fishing’s plenty technical enough.

These aren’t world-weary tailwater trout, habituated to the presence of humans or sophisticated flies.

Instead, these are trout as god intended – hungry, aggressive, but wholly intolerant of a sloppy, lazy predator. Trout darting to safety from under your feet is a common sight, yet despite a fair number of fly changes, I settled on a simple Beetle Bug attractor for most of the day.

This time, I also toted along a rod nicely suited to the fish and the waters – an 8′ 5wt Phillipson Peerless bamboo fly rod.

Underground Fave: The reddish-brown impregnated Phillipsons look stunning against spring green.

It’s a rod that gets fished, and fished hard (as Bill Phillipson intended), and yes, I think little’s harder on a fly rod than a wet, brush & tree-choked environment

Somebody out there is wincing, but this remained after I released a nice brown.

The fishing was slow at first, then gradually built over the day to the point where about half the really good looking spots seemed to hold a trout.

Nicely illustrating the concept of good and evil, the mosquitoes also built as the day progressed, and while I didn’t do for the garment what the Buff Babe did, I wore a Buff like a balaclava, protecting my neck and cheeks from the evil, bloodsucking Nestle bugs mosquitoes.

I may be back later this week.

Hint: There's a decent brown trout in the middle.

See you on a small stream, Tom Chandler.