The Brookie Blues

As we rode up the mountainous forest service road of the Appalachian Mountains the anticipation of getting on the small secluded creek to catch native brook trout heightened. Listening to a little Derek Trucks Band, Allman Bros, Grateful Dead, and Gov't Mule helped me get pumped for a little mountain stream brookie fishing action! At the top of the mountain the elevation was roughly 3,000 ft. The temperature was 32 degrees but with the wind chill it was actually more like 25 degrees. Needless to say it was cold. It was snot sickle cold to be exact. Jamie and I arrived at our destination at 8:20 a.m. We stepped out of our vehicles and the cold air overtook our comfortably car heater heated bodies. After loading up with our gear we set out on what we hoped would be a great day catching brook trout.
The native brook trout of Georgia live in streams that are above 2,000 ft of elevation, because the water temperature is reasonably lower than the fishery waters below this elevation. Our elevation at this time was 2,500 ft. Brookies must have water temperatures below 70 degrees to survive. An ideal range of water temperature for brook trout is around 56-61 degrees.
The hike up to our fishing spot was around a mile in length. The current of the mountain creek was perfect. The recent rain in Georgia has been a big factor of the quality of fishing the past two months. Today was different. As we stepped in the creek to walk up and fish, a canopy of mountain laurel surrounded us. The quarters were tight. The widest part, maybe seven feet. We opted to fish a two fly rig that day, a dry fly and a subsurface dropper. We tossed our flies up stream at eddy's and along runs with cover from rocks and fallen trees. The mile and a half give or take, we fished, was unproductive. Jamie had one hit all day but lost it. His LDR, actually it was a not an LDR, more like a FFNR, five feet nothing release, skunked us for the day. It was a very unusual day on this particular creek. It is usually a very productive fat brookie stream. By fat I mean less than a quarter pound to a little shy of a pound. Brook trout do not get big as brown and rainbow trout. The record brook trout in caught in Georgia is 5 lbs 10 ounces. It is unrealistic to think a person will catch this size on any given day. On an ordinary brook trout stream a pound would be a great trophy.
As Jamie and I talked about our day we could not figure out what the problem was. Flies? Water temp.? Recent weather? We just didn't know. Our guess as to what went wrong was that the cold snap in the weather going from 45 degrees the week before to 32 that morning threw the brook trout fishery into "shock". We think they were hunkered down on the bottom and weren't going to waste the energy to chase after a little morsel of food. Brookies are usually aggressive feeders. A brook trout would normally tear up a dry or nymph on any given day no matter the season, but not that day. We did see some great scenery, although it would have been nice to have brought some brookies to hand. Oh well, it made for an unsuccessful day. I had to listen to a little slide guitar and harmonica on the way home rolling in the golden eagle jeep. The sun was setting as I headed up the mountain and the cold crept in, as did the brookie blues. (Insert harmonica and the 12 bar blues guitar riff.)