Brook Trout Today

Brookie Paleoichthyology The brook “trout” (Salvelinus fontinalus) is really a char, related to Arctic char (Salvelinus alpinus), Dolly Varden (Salvelinus malma), bull trout (Salvelinus confluentus), and lake trout (Salvelinus namaycush). Over 20 million years ago, none of these species yet existed except as potential within a single, common ancestor (Salvelinus). “The earliest fossil of the precursor of Salvelinus dates to the Eocene epoch, some 50 million years ago,” according to Dr. Robert Behnke of Colorado State University. “Salvelinus, the genus of the chars, branched off from the genus of salmon and trout (Oncorhynchus) some 15 to 20 million years ago, during the Miocene.” If trout and salmon are cold-water fish, then the chars are ice-water fish, particularly well adapted to a frozen world. The many ice ages of earth’s recent past (10 have occurred in the past 1 million years) suited brookies well. Char thrived in the icy rivers and lakes formed by melting glaciers. We could say brook trout survived tougher times than these. We would be wrong. Deforestation, raw sewage, chemical pollution, global warming, acid rain, cattle ranching, overharvest, overdevelopment, and crops extending right to the stream edge are among many other factors contributing to long, steady decline. For brook trout, the rise of humanity makes the Ice Age seem like the good ol’ days. Changes in climate that took thousands of years then are taking decades today.

With a little research, fly selection need not be enormous. In my travels, I’ve found a half-dozen patterns that work everywhere. My first picks, subsurface, would include the redoubtable woolly bugger and any kind of sculpin imitation. The timing varies, but salters tend to run upriver between mid-August and mid-September, after rivers build up quite a store of forage. Salters return to the Sutton River, in Ontario, in such number the schools can blacken the river for 100 yards. Where we stopped to fish, every cast with an olive-green woolly bugger produced a strike. Interestingly, a black woolly bugger produced a strike on 2 of 3 casts, a brown version worked on 3 of 5 casts, and a white version only once in 4 or 5 casts. Going back to olive green at any point would continue to trigger a strike on every cast. Seems like a silly thing to pay attention to, but it hints that even salter brook trout of the Far North, never having seen humans, can be somewhat picky.

Inland brook trout on the tributaries of Smallwood Reservoir in Labrador were often visible in deep pools, because the water was so clear. Jaw-dropping giants in the 8- to 10-pound range milled about, seldom taking a fly, but they rose ominously to eyeball large mouse patterns (lemmings that fall into brook-trout streams up there have short life expectancies). In faster water, 3- to 5-pound brookies were blasting red-bellied humpies on top with relish.

The Caniapiscau in Quebec is big water. Spoons and spinners worked very well, but a Royal Coachman streamer or Muddler Minnow allowed to swing along the upstream face of riffles and rapids produced several brookies over 5 pounds. A brook trout in the 3- to 5-pound range is a bulldog and easily underestimated. Heavy but seemingly nonchalant, they come in after a few short runs only to produce tippet-snapping speeds when faced with a net.

Several species of mayfly were hatching while we filmed for In-Fisherman TV at Eagle River Lodge in Labrador last year, making it difficult to discern whether brookies were being selective or not. In the fast-water stretches between basins, almost any kind of dry mayfly imitation produced noisy, bulging rises from brutes ranging 4 to 8 pounds when fish were rising.

In all these fisheries, a few streamers, a few dry flies, and a few “wets” or nymphs were all we required for tackle. But, for the larger picture, you needed a really big tackle box—one that could carry a broad sense of imagination.

What Could Be

Most people who fish began by chasing panfish. I began by crawling on my belly toward streams so small I could step over them. The only fish living in these streams were brook trout, and a real monster was 12 inches long.

All you need to know to be successful at this type of angling can be summed up in a paragraph: Use 4-pound line and a single hook, size #10. Thread on a tiny worm freshly dug from the ground. Walk softly. The banks of a forest stream can be undercut 2 to 5 feet. You’re crawling on their “roof.” The smaller the environment, the spookier the fish, so crawl slowly the last few feet. Rod length determines when you stop crawling toward the stream. If you can see the water, they can see you. Reel the hook and worm right up to the rod tip and extend it slowly to the edge of the stream. Drop the worm into the water, leave the bail open, and watch your line. If 5 or 6 inches of line suddenly shoots through the guides, you have a bite. Don’t wait to set the hook, or the trout will swallow the bait.