Gastro Gnome - Eat Better Wherever

Littler trout out of littler creeks

Love this! I got interested in tenkara fishing over the winter and picked it up. Turns out there are trout in most of the tiny streams flowing from the mountains near my home. Streams I wouldn't have ever considered fishing previously. Now they provide hours of fun and adventure within minutes of my house. And the fish are gorgeous. I am sometimes surprised by the size of the fish in the smallest of waters.
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This kind of solitary tiny stream dink fishing is some of the best.

Plus, then creeks tend to stay pretty cold when everything else has turned to bass water.

I used to pull a lot of these little gems out of creeks in Shenandoah NP while I was schooling in the area back in the day. Often got away with using the same fly for hours at a time.
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Every fishermen should try to volunteer electro fishing. You never really realize how many fish there actually are, even in small water, and it teaches you a ton about where they like to hold.
Or just how fruitless your efforts are. 1 of the 2 streams I volunteered to assist with had almost zero fish and definitely zero fish over 4".
 
This kind of solitary tiny stream dink fishing is some of the best.

Plus, then creeks tend to stay pretty cold when everything else has turned to bass water.

I used to pull a lot of these little gems out of creeks in Shenandoah NP while I was schooling in the area back in the day. Often got away with using the same fly for hours at a time.
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View attachment 238125
I put on a size 14 caddis, dark brown body, and haven't changed it all summer. It damn sure wasn't what they wanted on a recent backpacking trip, but it's been hell on the small creeks.
 
I put on a size 14 caddis, dark brown body, and haven't changed it all summer. It damn sure wasn't what they wanted on a recent backpacking trip, but it's been hell on the small creeks.
That was my regular go-to on them eastern brookie streams too. I’d switch to an orange humpy as fall came around just to get in the seasonal spirit of things.
 
Small streams, small fish, and the Parachute Adams was the first piscatorial language I ever became fluent in. That’s all I wanted to do as a kid. Haven’t done nearly enough of it in the last few years, since most of my fishing lately has been with my kids and they aren’t exactly at the age to be stealthy quite yet.

This was the last little stream I explored. Still cracks me up that my buddy wore his waders.

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The water was pretty warm, so no fish-in-hand photos.

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Lies, all lies, nothing to see here. Little streams are not worth the time. Everyone just go back to your Blue Ribbon streams that are featured in all the fly magazines. That is where all the true fly fishing is. After all if it is not a double haul, are you really even casting?
 
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Small streams, small fish, and the Parachute Adams was the first piscatorial language I ever became fluent in. That’s all I wanted to do as a kid. Haven’t done nearly enough of it in the last few years, since most of my fishing lately has been with my kids and they aren’t exactly at the age to be stealthy quite yet.

This was the last little stream I explored. Still cracks me up that my buddy wore his waders.

View attachment 238139

View attachment 238140

The water was pretty warm, so no fish-in-hand photos.

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I don't know where that is, but I want to go there, REAL bad. Look at all the space for a backcast! I swear I spent the vast majority of the time trying to get my fly out of the bush/tree/shrub behind me.
 
I put on a size 14 caddis, dark brown body, and haven't changed it all summer. It damn sure wasn't what they wanted on a recent backpacking trip, but it's been hell on the small creeks.
Elk hair caddis has been my best fly this summer too. Haven't switched to anything else for months and haven't needed to. I fished a high mountain lake Monday and those snobby lake fish would swim up and look at the fly, sniff it, and turn away. But not those stream fish. They only have a split second to decide if they're going to eat and they usually do.

I did get a few tigers in that lake to take the caddis though.20220904_191147.jpg
 
Or just how fruitless your efforts are. 1 of the 2 streams I volunteered to assist with had almost zero fish and definitely zero fish over 4".
Yeah, been there too. Spring fed creeks coming off a divide can be pretty barren on a dry year. You know there’s not enough water or the temps are too high when you don’t even get any sculpin.
 
Yeah, been there too. Spring fed creeks coming off a divide can be pretty barren on a dry year. You know there’s not enough water or the temps are too high when you don’t even get any sculpin.
yeah, this summer’s heat and drought has me wondering about some tiny streams we fished up in the sangri de christo mountains in Colorado, all native little cuties/ cutthroats
 
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