Fly Fishing For Brook Trout

The brook trout is Wisconsin's only native stream trout. It truly is, as its Latin name, 'Salvelinus fontinalis", implies a fish of the fountains.

It requires cold, clean water to exist, so it is seldom found far from springs. Head water ponds and upper reaches of spring fed streams are its natural habitat.

Originally found all over the state, to the Indians and the first white men, it was a "miner's canary". Water that supported brook trout was considered safe to drink.

Lumbering, road building, land development, and pollution decimated brook trout habitat early in the state's history. Today their range is confined to northern and part of central Wisconsin.

It has a reputation for having the most delectable flavored flesh of all the trouts. No doubt the purity of the water it inhabits contributes to this.

It is also one of the most beautiful of nature's creations. Although coloration varies with season and environment, it normally has vermiculated markings on a dark back that varies in hue from lavender to olive. This shades into flanks that are rose or orange and its fins are orange with white and black margins. It is spotted with iridescent crimson dots that are usually outlined by violet halos. In the fall, the mating male wears colors of such brilliance as to defy description.

Combine this with a seemingly insatiable appetite and you have a fish to quicken the pulse of the most jaded fly fisher.

Brook trout are caught with bait, spinning lures, and even by plug-casting, but they are pre-eminently a fly fisher's quarry. Even large ones seem to prefer an insect diet. Stoneflies, caddis flies, mayflies, and terrestrials such as beetles and grasshoppers are important food for them.

Although wary, it is the least so of all the trout family. If spooked or put down by a clumsy approach, usually fifteen minutes or so of rest will find the brookie rising freely again. A brown under the same circumstances would sulk for hours.

Nymphs and wet flies produce well for brookies in small streams, and most of the time, a delicate presentation isn't critical. On small brushy creeks, (typical wild brook trout habitat) ordinarily all that's necessary is to push a short rod through an opening and shake out line downstream. Often three feet or less is sufficient leader length under such conditions.

After enough line is out to place the fly below the area you wish to fish, >retrieve slowly with frequent pauses, and drop backs, lifting the rod tip occasionally to suggest an emerging nymph.

When you feel a take, strike hard. This is necessary because the current will curve your line and it takes a quick, hard pull to remove slack and set the hook. Be sure the hook point is sharp.

One advantage in using flies is that, with them, fish are usually just lip-hooked and can be released unharmed. In small streams, often several small trout are hooked and released to each keeper that is creeled. With bait or lures with treble hooks, mortality is higher.

The same tactics work good on small meadow streams. Many creeks in marshy areas have shelving banks on each side where bogs reach out over the water. This coupled with overhanging grass can make a stream appear narrow and shallow when actually it may be quite wide, and deep to boot.

Shaking out line and then retrieving a wet fly back upstream is good technique here also, and this kind of stream is apt to hold trophy fish.

Very seldom is it necessary to use small flies for brook trout. Size l0 to l2 are fine. Some good wet flies are the various Coachman patterns, Grizzly King, Hare's Ear, Black Gnat, Brown Hackle (really a wingless coachman), Gray Hackle, and muskrat and peacock herl nymphs.

Streamers also are widely used in the same type water. Those made with squirrel tail wings always seem to be productive, probably because of their resemblance to stoneflies. Another streamer that suggests a stonefly is the Muddler Minnow.

In northern Wisconsin, beaver ponds, spring holes and a few lakes sometimes offer terrific dry fly fishing. One of the most exciting memories this writer has is of standing in Patterson Lake in Price County with water dangerously near the top of chest-high waders, and trying to bring large brook trout that had taken the dry flies, then bored for the bottom, within reach of his landing net. If you've never had a diving trout wrap line around and between your ankles with cold water trickling over the top of your waders, you haven't lived.

Diving for the bottom after taking a fly is an earmark of brook trout. Other trout leap and run, and perform all kinds of maneuvers to escape. A large brook trout goes down and stays down. You can haul it up repeatedly but it seems just the sight of a net is enough to renew its strength and down it goes again.

Dry flies for brook trout must be high floating so fine wire, hard tempered hooks are a must. If you can straighten the bend with your fingers, leave that hook alone. A trophy brook trout will straighten it on his first dive. As a rule, English hooks are tempered harder than Norwegian. They break easier if ticked on the back cast but very rarely straighten in service.

Beaverkill, Gray Hackle, Adams, Gray and Brown Wulffs, and Brown Bivisible are all good lake and pond brook trout patterns. They should be tied full and bushy. These fish like a mouth full.

Another earmark of brook trout is their rise. Browns and rainbows take a fly with kind of an arching motion. Brook trout tend to take by coming straight up from underneath and if they miss and the angler moves the fly, will often charge after and catch it.

Just as in stream wet fly fishing, delicate presentation is not essential. One of the most successful brook trout dry fly fishers this writer has known always laid the line and fly down with a slight splash. His theory was, "you gotta get their attention," and it worked.