Wild brook trout are well worth the hike in to headwaters streams.
All photos by Mike Jennette
Reader Mike Jennette caught this sweet, 9.5-inch wild brook trout last month in Mitchell County, North Carolina. He was casting a size 10 Olive Woolly Bugger in a crystal-clear, upper-elevation tributary of the North Toe River watershed. It was clearly a special moment for Jennette, who wrote:
It has been written in the Far East that “true enlightenment flows not upon words.” As a fly angler, you hope for that quiet aesthetic moment when words drift to irrelevance…
For a small stream, this was a good-size specimen.
All photos by Mike Jennette
Wild brookies often display stunning colors.
I live in North Carolina and visit Stone Mountain regularly. What a beautiful brookie. While I’ve never caught a wild brook I have had an opportunity to catch one in the upper elevations of garden creek, it’s very hard to top the experience of hiking up and fishing those little pools. I brought my son 12 year old son with me and it is something I will never forget. Beautiful trout
That’s one of the most beautiful brookie’s I’ve ever seen. Wow.
That’s a big Brooke trout for a small stream ,I’d love to catch Brooke trout to fish for them in the smokies ,again great fish