What the…Splake?!

Small Streams. There is just something about skinny water and hunting trout that gets me crazy excited.  Peering through bushes, over boulders and crouching in long grass to cast into a tiny hole you just know has a willing fish.  It’s the type of fishing that requires creative casts and hook sets.  It is make or break, few casts needed and they generally end with either a fish or a snag in the trees.  When Jesse and I pulled off the highway too see our original destination blown out and flowing more like chocolate milk being pour from its container, we knew what to do.  Head for skinny water and hunt for little guys!

The water we decided on is small enough to jump across, looks more like a series of small waterfalls than a stream and is filled with Browns and Bows.  It is the never fail, catch a fish stream and on occasion yields fish far larger then I would expect from water of its size.  At times it is a mistress less visited and other times I find myself drawn back again and again.  No matter my fidelity I am always welcomed back to inviting water and over enthusiastic fish.  Today she was more generous than normal giving up a few browns in the 13-14 inch range, several good bows and a splake!  Don’t ask me how she managed to provide a fish that has no place being in that stream but it was mind blowing to catch a stowaway hybrid char in that creek.  I know there is no stocking program anywhere in the system – let alone one that stocks splake.  There are no brookies and certainly not any lakers either, so I am left scratching my head.  Thankful is about the only word that I can think of when I realize the chances of catching a fish that is more than likely the only of its kind in the system.  Perhaps he was mixed into a truck filled with stocker browns or something but, however it got there I am glad to have caught it!