Thin Blue Lines

We have a lot of "things to do" earlier in the trout season. One of those is to inspect those small streams that may have a name (or not). This is something that gets put on the back burner when the "bigger" streams come into form. Best intentions get put aside for another season and we just forget about them. Sometimes this process gets turned around.

Two weeks ago I was driving along some back roads around where I live. I always slow down by any bridge crossing to glimpse the water and to see if anything is flowing especially during this drought. The breaks went on when I saw REAL water flowing. There was no rain event for a few days so this was something special. The next day trip to the Swift got postponed. I had to try it.

It was lightly raining at 6 am which made it more inviting. A five minute walk from the car(the bridge spot appeared to be posted) brought me to a cool, damp trout stream with a good flow around mossy rocks and some old dead falls. Let's do dries via Small Stream Reflections and see what happens.

I took brookies between 4 and 7 inches long as the rain went from light to slightly heavy to downpour in two hours. I'm soaked but happy.

Many decades ago I caught my first native trout on a rainy summer morning such as this. Mom appeared to be pissed that I was drenched but I think she knew it was a lost cause. I was meant to do this!!!!

One photo is of a brookie that you can see if you enlarge it. I'm not telling about this place for a while (maybe never) or maybe I'll give some cryptic messages about where it is. But then again you may live closer to a place like this than you think.

On another note: the Swift is up again!

Ken