A Thin Blue Line 10-20-14

Several years ago while thumbing through the Connecticut Atlas I found an interesting looking small blue line. The stream was not a far drive from home and from the maps showing it looked to be a not to bad of a walk to access the brook. The stream flows through parts of public land and parts of private land. So yesterday I decided to do some further exploration of this little stream.

After coffee I left my house around 9 and was at the parking area at 10. The parking area is shared with hikers and walkers. I was geared up in a few minutes and off to check it out. One thing I picked up on was the surrounding woods were mostly of hemlock and stands of mountain laurel. There were a few hardwoods in the mix and they were located on the ridge. The stream was flowing with ample water. I placed my hand into it and could tell it was cold. This freestone stream has a gentle gradient and access to the water along its course was pretty easy.

As you can see the the stream is not brushy and casting with my 7 footer was not a problem. By the way some of the hemlocks here have been around many years. Some of them were quite impressive in size.

The stream is a series of pools, some of which are quite deep, and runs and riffles. The bottom is covered with mostly stone with a few large boulders. Some of the pools were silted and leaf filled.

The first series of riffles answered the question "are there any trout in this stream". The wet fly stopped its swing and the brook trout was on. This little spotted wild jewel was the first of many.

There were no prime locations, fish were in almost every part.

Fine spots, glorious reds, and blue halos dominate, as does the large squared tail.

I came upon a few of these waterfalls. They emptied into some beautiful pools.

In some of the pools were brook trout as these.

A mini gorge. Looks part of natures creativity and perhaps part mans. The water was very deep and the currents a bit tricky. The fly did strange things, and that brought a strike or two.

I only fished a quarter of this streams length. I was very happy what I had found. Further exploration is planned.