Are you fishing for Brook Trout?

[Ard]

Tying;

Hook: Your favorite streamer hook in size 2 - 8
Tail: Three small bunches of hackle fibers stacked; white, black, red, bottom up
Body: Rear 2/3 cream floss, front is pink floss
Tinsel Ribbing: Medium gold flat tinsel
Throat:3 bunches of hackle fibers stacked same as the tail
Wing: 2 Grizzly hackles with 2 green hackles over them. The green are painted with red & yellow spots down the quill
Cheeks: jungle Cock eyes
Head: The fly in the picture is very old (circa 1980) the head was built up with thread for profile and then painted olive green with a white chin. This can be much more simple, just use olive thread and finish it off. However I would not skip the spots on the wing, if you go to the trouble of tying these you may as well stick with Dr. Oatman's original design.



Since we now have a Brook trout Pictures thread I thought it time to bring this back. If you want to catch a brookie with one of the most traditional streamers ever made for them get your materials sorted and start working on these. I know you've seen this fly on the cover of magazines and in the books but have you ever used it for Brookies? They are a bit of a chore to create and a bit of a heart breaker if you loose one but I fished them in Pennsylvania's Slate Run for many years with great success. Admittedly many flies will work to catch a Brook Trout but these always seemed so right to me. You know those big guys are eating the little guys so why not tie up the Oatman Brook Trout Minnow for late fall and the spring fishing to come?

Note that if you're going to stay the course and make them true to the original you've got to paint that head olive and white. Tying streamers in winter is kinda like going back to when you used to build model cars and planes in winter when you were a kid. You did build models, right?

I had some time on my hands today and thought I'd try to stir the mix and get people thinking about the traditional fishing flies that started this all. This is an unused piece from my collection tied circa 1990, I have about 6 in my streamer wallet in various stages of being torn apart from the teeth of fish. Since moving to Alaska I use them in the fall for Dolly Varden Char, a fall spawner.

 

[sandfly]

Great fly for Giant Brookies in labrador, and Pike too..The brookies here are smaller..

 

[Ard]

Great fly for Giant Brookies in labrador, and Pike too..The brookies here are smaller..

You'd be surprised how many big Brookies there are in your Pa. streams. The fly shown is a #4 and I never used under a #6. People think the Brook Trout are all small perhaps because they usually fish to the risers or prospect with a dry fly. If you fish a feather wing like this one well around the boulders and brush / logs, there are some 11' - 14' specimens to find. Not a whole bunch but then they wouldn't be special if they were all big. Try Slate; Cedar; Hammersley Fork; and Fishing Creek in Clinton Co. for some larger ones.

 

[sandfly]

sure on those streams, but most streams here where i am are all wild brook trout streams small fish.. of course on pine we get big browns..

 

[Ard]

sure on those streams, but most streams here where i am are all wild brook trout streams small fish.. of course on pine we get big browns..

Where are you at? The streams I mentioned are not very large excepting Fishing Creek, and all but Fishing Creek are wild fish. Many of the fish in Fishing Creek are stream born but the hatchery affects one's ability to make claims of any one fishes origins.

I know that a guy caught that giant breeder below the hatchery back in 94' or 95' but all of my catches there were under 16". Slate has some big ones even up Francis Branch but the Hammersley Fork had it's glory days back in the seventies and prior. I caught so nice ones back in the mid nineties there but they were far scarcer than they were 25 years before.

Here the closest relative we have to the Brook Trout is the Arctic Char and the ever popular Dolly Varden Char. I miss Brook Trout fishing at this time of year. The Char sometimes can be easy but often in the smaller streams they are perplexing. I don't use the Oatman Minnow here for them, I use a Nine Three and if I'm careful not to be seen they hammer it. Never lament over the size of Brookies, some of us have none.

 

[OldMan]

Brookies here will eat anything that floats by.

 

[Douglas Wesson]

Here in Oregon I've found that the fall after the first freeze is a good time to target brookies. Hosmer lake is very good and occasionally I'll p/u a brookie in the White Salmon above the lake.

 

[sandfly]

Here above pine creek canyon there are a lot of small streams, slate and cedar are medium for this area..

 

[ksbrowntrout2]

Great recomendation on this fly...I was fishing the norfork tailwater with some nymphs, and was really only catching smallish rainbows. I tied 3 of this fly before i went down there, and they did the trick on huge browns. I also caught two 3 pound brookies.

Biggest brook trout of my life,

Thanks HardyReels!!!!

 

[Ard]

KS,

Did you take any pictures of those trout? If so post them on the "Your biggest fish on a fly" thread I'd like to see those babies.

As for the small streams of North Central Pa. Sandfly you just gotta try some streamers in those pools. Right at the head with a downstream cast, remember..........be sneaky. Slap it in and get er moving right away and you may be surprised.

Ard

 

[Ard]

For the Brook Trout aficionados

 

[Walter1023]

Ard:
I love brook trout although they constitute probably 1% of the trout I actually catch and that is only because in early season I hit the only brook trout stream in the area (kind of sad as they are the only true native resident of NY)... they are beautiful little creatures and less savvy than the popular browns (like the girl next door that doesn't realize she's 10 times prettier than Paris Hilton). ...but my 2nd most memorable one I ever caught was last week (my first is my most memorable). I was fishing the heavily fished and technical "Farmington River" in Ct after making the 90 minute drive. I caught a few nice browns via dry fly during the day (the most popular residents)......I then was casting to a riser along the bank and much to my amazement pulled in a 10" Brookie ...which I never caught there before ......my last fish of the day before I departed was a rainbow - not a rarity but less prevalent than browns - and on the way back to my car it dawned on me......I got my first ever "SLAM" - which i never anticipated or expected - such is the uncertainty of flyfishing - and I credit all to that lone beautiful little Brookie.

 

[Ard]

Walter,

I love hearing stories such as that, it's been a while since I've seen you post. I'm glad this thread got you on the board with a good memory.

Ard

 

[lancer09]

Beautiful little fly, I might have to get some stuff to whip a few of them up.

 

[Ard]

If you have and difficulty just get in touch and I will help you to understand how to set the wings so that they will stand up to casting and the teeth of fish. A real bummer is when you tie a beauty and the wings come lose before the fly has even caught a fish. They are a lot of work at the vise but I have always caught enough on them to make it well worth the work.

Ard

 

[vatroutbumintx]

Great-looking fly. I'll have to try it.

 

[Ard]

I lived in North Central Pennsylvania for a long time and that was the only streamer I used for brook trout. It worked on Slate Run & Cedar Run Brookies and they have seen all the woolly buggers they need. Seldom did they resist Oatmans pattern.

 

[BlueDun]

Hardyreels: how about posting the pattern? Or, if it is already somewhere on this forum, please post the link!

 

[Ard]

I added the recipe to the original post at the top of the thread. These were my Brook Trout streamer back east. I did catch many a fish on the Nine Three but the Oatman Minnow became my favorite. Sure you can probably catch them on an olive woolly bugger but using one of these has a certain intrinsic value that a fly tier / fisherman or woman can truly appreciate.

Ard

 

[Ard]

This thread doesn't address techniques for fishing the streamers but puts forth the Lew Oatman pattern for consideration when tying trout streamers.

Ard