# My first trout on the fly



## fallen513 (Jan 5, 2010)

Brookville tailwaters around 5 pm, 6'10" Scott 4 weight, 7x tippet & size 12, very simple black bugger with flash & no hackle. Much like every other predator species it busted the fly in the seam of some nice deep jade green water.


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## Patricio (Feb 2, 2007)

trout are fun.


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## fallen513 (Jan 5, 2010)

I must admit I am intrigued by the coldwater species.


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## copperdon (Jun 3, 2011)

fallen513 said:


> I must admit I am intrigued by the coldwater species.


I couldn't agree more. As a child, I can remember being much more intruiged with a mountain or meadow stream than I was with a lake or a big river. I remember wondering _"I wonder if that's where trout live?" _and that was before I'd ever even caught one. 

There's something about approaching a clear, cold, pristine stream, knowing that beautiful fish - who need very clean water to survive, are in there waiting. IMO, It makes no difference if they are 5" brookies or 3 lb browns.

It's about trying to fool them with what really amounts to nothing more than a thumbful of thread, feathers or fur, trying to get them to rise. 

Your own picture on your original post tells the whole story.


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## fishinnick (Feb 19, 2011)

Nice!!!!!!


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## TheCream (Mar 19, 2009)

Wait, hold up, stop the presses...your *first* trout on the fly? You need to go on a roadie with me to WV!


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## fallen513 (Jan 5, 2010)

I really do Jeff.


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## fallen513 (Jan 5, 2010)

Do they have hybrids?


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## nitsud (May 22, 2010)

I don't know that I get the obsession with trout. I mean, I like them just fine and have caught a few on spinning gear. I had a great time in Bville right before Christmas last year and caught about 6 of them. They're fun to fight, and active in the winter, which is nice, but I'll take a hybrid or a smallie over a trout in most cases. Maybe I'm wrong, but they don't seem to be all that much harder to catch than other fish, it's just a question of opportunity.

In any case, nice fish! I know from experience that you were due to get one there


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## TheCream (Mar 19, 2009)

nitsud said:


> I don't know that I get the obsession with trout. I mean, I like them just fine and have caught a few on spinning gear. I had a great time in Bville right before Christmas last year and caught about 6 of them. They're fun to fight, and active in the winter, which is nice, but I'll take a hybrid or a smallie over a trout in most cases. Maybe I'm wrong, but they don't seem to be all that much harder to catch than other fish, it's just a question of opportunity.
> 
> In any case, nice fish! I know from experience that you were due to get one there


It's really just something different, for me. Sort of like a change of pace, I don't like fishing the same way for the same species all the time. And with trout fishing, especially in the mountains to our east, the scenery and environment where you find the wild rainbows and native brook trout knocks your socks off. Words can't describe how gorgeous it is down there.

No hybrids in the streams I fish...that I know of.


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## steelheader007 (Apr 8, 2004)

In a few months it will be the first Char on a fly, and the first lake run Brown on a fly!


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## fallen513 (Jan 5, 2010)

steelheader007 said:


> In a few months it will be the first Char on a fly, and the first lake run Brown on a fly!



That's what I'm talkin' about Tom. =) 

Baby stockers ain't doin' it for me.


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## fontinalis (Mar 29, 2011)

nitsud said:


> I don't know that I get the obsession with trout. I mean, I like them just fine and have caught a few on spinning gear. I had a great time in Bville right before Christmas last year and caught about 6 of them. They're fun to fight, and active in the winter, which is nice, but I'll take a hybrid or a smallie over a trout in most cases. Maybe I'm wrong, but they don't seem to be all that much harder to catch than other fish, it's just a question of opportunity.
> 
> In any case, nice fish! I know from experience that you were due to get one there


I prefer trout fishing because i like the environments that trout live in.


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## Patricio (Feb 2, 2007)

fontinalis said:


> I prefer trout fishing because i like the environments that trout live in.


trout fishing is far more than fishing. I've long ago given up on teaching the philosophy behind fly fishing. the idea that it transcends _fishing_ as most know it. 

Testament of a Fisherman I fish because I love to; because I love the environs where trout are found, which are invariably beautiful and I hate the environs where crowds of people are found, which are invariably ugly; because of all the television commercials, cocktail parties, and assorted social posturing I thus escape; because, in a world where most men seem to spend their lives doing things they hate, my fishing is at once an endless source of delight and an act of small rebellion; because trout do not lie or cheat and cannot be bought or bribed or impressed by power, but respond only to quietude and humility and endless patience; because I suspect that men are going along this way for the last time, and I for one don't want to waste the trip; because only in the woods can I find solitude without loneliness; because bourbon out of an old tin cup always tastes better out there; because maybe one day I will catch a mermaid; and, finally, not because I regard fishing as being so terribly important but because I suspect that so many of the other concerns of men are equally unimportant - and not nearly so much fun. (From Anatomy of a Fisherman by Robert Traver)


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## fontinalis (Mar 29, 2011)

lol, i guess i was on to something


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## OhJoe (Mar 9, 2010)

Thats a pretty little fish. Always nice to mix it up a bit. Nice photo too.


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## nitsud (May 22, 2010)

Got it, tiny fish in secluded locations... 

Just kidding, I figured that trout lust was as much based on the place and process as the fish. I really can't argue with that, and the fish are fanstastic creatures, even the tiny ones. Someday when I have some time, I'll spend some of it hunting the creeks of Pennsylvania, and see if the lust strikes me. It sounds like something I'd like.


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## Dandrews (Oct 10, 2010)

Good lookin fish, congratulations.

Not all trout are tiny. Ive never caught a steelhead but I lived in Eastern Tennessee for a couple years. Ive caught few really good rainbows & browns down there in Norris Lake tail waters on spinning gear. If you catch a trout equal in size to the bass youre used to catching, you might be surprised at the fight they put up. Like others have said, theres more to it than the mechanical act of fishing.


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## copperdon (Jun 3, 2011)

nitsud said:


> I don't know that I get the obsession with trout.


It's more of a "zen" thing. I'm not knocking other forms of fishing. I've had more than my fair share of experience with taking big monster bass on a popper on top of a weed bed, of pulling a buzz bait along a weedline and hitting nice Northerns, and as a kid growing up near Wyoga Lake, the kids in the neighborhood used to have our own little carp tournaments, and I looked forward to it every weekend in the summers.

But there's _something_ about trout... perhaps it's because of the environment you are normally in when fishing for them - cold, clear streams; prisitine and clean, because trout are a pretty fragile fish and need clean oxygentated water to survive...

Or it's the fact that you are trying to fool these fish with what amounts to nothing more than a fingerful of feathers or fur...

Maybe it's because of the solitude - (other than attempting opening day of the season on a popular stream LOL)

For the most part, you can get off by yourself - no loud motors, no busy ramps. There's something about following a beautiful stream or brook, walking through the woods or meadow, looking for "that spot".

IMO, it's a much more "genteel" form of fishing, elegant almost, relying on presentation; as opposed to simply chucking a huge lure with 3 treble hooks that could snag a helicopter if one was to fly too low.. LOL 

In the end, I think it's the experience on the whole - an appreciation for nature, the beauty of the surroundings, the challenge, the solitude, becoming one with the stream that you are fishing.

Just one man's opinion.


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## Andrew S (Jul 7, 2011)

I'm largely with nitsud. Trout, under the right circumstances, are great. But all the stuff people have said can apply to any other kind of fish. To me, there's nothing more sublime than poking shoreline cover for largemouth on a misty summer morning, or slipping a crayfish imitation under that overhanging bunch of tree roots to find a smallmouth, or fishing the outgoing tide on a coastal river with big herring flies where hungry stripers lurk, or well, you get the idea.

Wild trout, and particularly native trout in their native range (which in the case of rainbows, means essentially only four states in the U.S.) are great...but the cookie cutter, pale washed-out stockies that they pack into streams in virtually every state of the union, where people line up elbow-to-elbow to catch them on corn niblets.

Yawn.


(No offense fallen  )


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## TheCream (Mar 19, 2009)

Andrew S said:


> I'm largely with nitsud. Trout, under the right circumstances, are great. But all the stuff people have said can apply to any other kind of fish. To me, there's nothing more sublime than poking shoreline cover for largemouth on a misty summer morning, or slipping a crayfish imitation under that overhanging bunch of tree roots to find a smallmouth, or fishing the outgoing tide on a coastal river with big herring flies where hungry stripers lurk, or well, you get the idea.
> 
> Wild trout, and particularly native trout in their native range (which in the case of rainbows, means essentially only four states in the U.S.) are great...but the cookie cutter, pale washed-out stockies that they pack into streams in virtually every state of the union, where people line up elbow-to-elbow to catch them on corn niblets.
> 
> ...


You pretty much took the words out of my mouth, Andrew. For me...and I love large, bug-eating, square tailed minnows...there is nothing quite as exciting as a good bass exploding on a surface fly. But for my money, the best "rush" in fly fishing is that initial explosive run of a big carp miliseconds after it's hooked. They just plain go nuts, and trying to stop them is like trying to brake an out-of-control 50 car train with a 7wt. :B

As for the cookie cutter stockers, if people like them they can have them. I avoid stocker streams like the plague. Not much about that appeals to me. But catching sub-12" native and wild trout in small streams is something I could do all day, every day.


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## Andrew S (Jul 7, 2011)

I've had this discussion a lot with a friend of mine who likes to fish for everything, but certainly likes to fish for trout more than I do. My criteria for the "perfect" fish, in no particular order, include:

1) It's beautiful
2) It fights well
3) It gets "reasonably" large
4) It lives in places where I like to fish
5) It's wild, not stocked
6) It's native

Now, what this means is that many of the fish I fish for don't get "perfect scores". I like to fish for carp, but they're not native where I fish for them (and whether they're beautiful is debatable, I suppose! I happen to like their looks.) Sunfish don't score well on criterion number 3, at least for my tastes - but I still like them because they have a lot of the other things going for them. Stripers along the Atlantic coast - my main target until I moved to Ohio - had it all. Tarpon, which I fished for in Puerto Rico, got bonus points on all accounts.

I've fished for native, wild, beautiful brookies and rainbows (the former in New England, the latter in California and Alaska), and that was great.

But in most of the U.S., the trout people are fishing for just don't "score" high enough to appeal to me.


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## buckeyeflyguy (Jan 22, 2009)

Andrew, when I read your list of criteria I immediately thought of stripers in the surf....and was not surprised to see you comment on them later! I am not a purist by any means, but your criteria make a lot of sense to me.


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