Photos: Zen and the Art of Brook Trout


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…

Check out Mike’s blog here.


For a small stream, this was a good-size specimen.
All photos by Mike Jennette

Wild brookies often display stunning colors.

3 thoughts on “Photos: Zen and the Art of Brook Trout”

  1. 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

  2. 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

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