I managed to con my mom into taking me up to the Swift River in MA for the day today. When we got there, there weren't many trout at all in the fly fishing only, catch and release section. I've been told by some that people are simply poaching the river, but that's another topic entirely. Anyway, it was also very crowded to my dismay because the few places with fish were taken by multiple anglers. After looking around for a while I decided to head into the feeder stream. There I noticed a few feeding trout and managed to get a nice rainbow on a caddis pattern of my own design. Higher up in the feeder stream i found what looked to be another feeding rainbow. However, upon fooling it into biting and after a good fight, I realized i had caught on of the Swift's native brookies. He was by far the biggest wild brookie I've ever caught; I estimate him at about 15in or so.
My rig was simple; a strike indicator off of which came about two or three feet of 7x tippet. At the end of that was a #14 caddis pattern, again my design, and off of that about 6in of 7x tippet tied to my newest caddis design.
It's a good feeling when you see a trout like this with your fly in it's mouth.
After a successful release, he went right back to his feeding lane.
This wild brookie really did give quite the fight!
Some days I get nothing in the feeder stream, but sometimes, it saves the day.
