Nick Yadley takes us to a stream in Vermont along with his dogs and a fly rod.
While others dread the dog days of summer here in Vermont, I secretly await them like a kid waits for Christmas, the big rivers shut down as the water temps rise, but the high mountain trickles remain icy cold and clear under a canopy of maple and fir. Generally when anglers talk of chasing brookies in the Green Mountains, they are talking about doing so in things that most would call a stream. Head up hill a few miles and three or four tributaries removed and you find what I enjoy. Little trickles missed in the blink of an eye if you were to walk by.
Up here I use walking the dogs as camouflage for fishing. Some of my spots depart sharply from popular trails on the flanks of Mount Mansfield and Camel's Hump. A guy with a couple of dogs and a well-disguised broken down rod is not pegged as an angler here. When it’s time to depart the trail and head to my trickle a quick look up and down the trail to be sure the coast is clear and then a mad scramble to descend to my goal and the cool solitude it offers. I can be fishing as close as 50 yards from some very well trodden trails and no one would ever guess that brook trout, the dogs and I were so close.
You don’t catch 10” brookies up here, because no one ever comes up here and because brookies just don’t get that big this far up. Anything that hits 8” gives you bragging rights, but better to just smile and never tell. These little trickles draining our highest Green Mountain peaks, cascade through sweating rocks each pool ranging in size from toilet bowel to bath tub. Using a 4 weight here would be like using your tarpon rod to fish the River Wharf. A 7’ 9” 2 is my weapon of choice, over lined with a 3 weight line to take in to account the short range casting that is reality of this type of fishing, one day perhaps I’ll splash out on a 0 weight, I think that will be a lot of fun up here. Tackle is simple, a spool of 6 x in your pocket and a couple of foam beetles stuck in your hat and of course dog treats. A well-planned trip will have you stashing a beer in the first pool ready for your return.
So clear are these pockets of liquid crystal that you can watch in awe as a 4 incher darts from under a rock to attack your beetle, so naive are these fish that you may get a second chance if you screw up the first strike, but rarely a third. Each fish, landed is a treasure savoured, colours radiate as sharp as can be, yet back in the water they soon become a dark shadow and then disappear.
Like many things that are special, trickles are delicate and while a delight to fish, overindulgence can damage what you love the most. I treasure my trickles and ration myself to fishing the same section to just a few times a year. With so many to sample this is not the hardship it may appear. I’ve yet to meet another angler on these little no-name dribbles and I hope to keep it that way. Beside who would come this far for a few tiddlers anyway? Just think of all those big rivers down in the valley stuffed with 16” + fish that’s where you should head, not here.