Brook trout in Victoria Australia

[spod]

I was talking to another fly fisher at a nearby small creek in Healesville and the subject of brook trout came up. There are a few isolated spots that hold brook trout on Australia but they are nowhere near as common as brown or rainbow trout. He claimed to have caught them in a very tiny remote creek, a few miles SE of where I live. I know the spot and have driven over the bridge many times. The description given seemed right--greenish grey with small pale spots. So I have to check out this spot, even just to satisfy my curiosity.
Do brookies have any kind of preferences in flies?
Hopefully I'll be able to confirm these brook trout in a week or two. Even if I draw a brook trout blank, I'll still have the pleasure of fishing another small water.
Cheers,
Steve

[Ernest]

Steve,
I grew up fishing native brook trout in small streams. I can't argue with the "greenish grey with small pale spots" description. I've known brook trout to range from near black to almost all silver within just a few miles, depending on water chemistry, diet, light and cover, time of year, and maybe some other factors. The most reliable indicator is that the true trout (rainbows, cutthroats, browns) have dark spots on a lighter background, and the chars (of which the brookie is one) have light spots on a darker background. You'll find lots of pictures of brook trout on the web.
As to flies, I would use the flies that you use for browns in the same area. Brook trout have a reputation for being easier to catch that brown trout. Some people like attractor flies with a bit of red in them. I like a little blaze orange in the autumn pre-spawn period. In streams with a limited food supply, any reasonable fly will work fine. Where the fish are well fed, your imitations have to get closer to the natural insects, crustaceans, and minnows to catch the bigger brookies.
Please post a report after you visit this stream.
Ernest

[rossa]

Greenish grey almost sounds like a lake trout. Where abouts in Victoria is it; would it be in the Northen part (I can't remeber the name of the mountain range).

[ksbioteacher]

Probably not Victoria.....but Ofuros has been looking also....

http://smallstreams.com/showthread.php?7300-Rumours&highlight=ofuros+brook

[trout-nut]

Brook will eat about anything you throw at them. Good luck and happy catching

[mems]

Aloha, Blue halo- brook trout, good luck, Mems

[Nycflyangler]

Brook trout can live in amazingly thin waters. My friend's farm in Vermont had a small brook, 18 to 30 inches wide, cutting through it. Maybe a foot deep at most. You could toss a fly in and one would nail it before it floated a foot. If it got sucked under the undercut bank, you were guaranteed to pull a brookie out. They weren't huge, around four to eight inches, but they were there and they were hungry. The important thing was cold clean water.

[BrkTrt]

Your fortunate to be able to fish for these trout.

Here is the best fly you can present to them.


http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p235/brookie47/cape/DSCN1742.jpg

The Ausable Bomber.

Brk Trt

[spod]

Tomorrow I'm hoping to try that creek I wrote about and see if it does hold brook trout. From what I can remember the creek is very narrow, rocky and runs through a steep gully. I'll take all the flies that I have which include Royal Coachman, Red and Black matuka, Poacher and Black Wooly Worm, all of which have a touch of red or orange which seems to be the go for brook trout from what I've read on this post. Wish me luck.
Cheers,
Steve.

[BrkTrt]

Good luck, enjoy the day.

Brk Trt



Tomorrow I'm hoping to try that creek I wrote about and see if it does hold brook trout. From what I can remember the creek is very narrow, rocky and runs through a steep gully. I'll take all the flies that I have which include Royal Coachman, Red and Black matuka, Poacher and Black Wooly Worm, all of which have a touch of red or orange which seems to be the go for brook trout from what I've read on this post. Wish me luck.
Cheers,
Steve.

[spod]

I waded, clambered, slipped up that little creek that I was hoping to catch brook trout from but with no luck. The creek was pretty enough with ferns, overhanging trees and moss covered boulders. There were many small dinner table sized pools with shallow connecting runs. If I was a self respecting brook trout, I'd set up house there. However, I did not catch any fish, brook trout or others. That's not to say the creek doesn't contain trout, it's just that I wasn't able to tempt them with the flies I threw at them--bead head nymphs, Royal Coachman and black wooly worm.
On the way home I stopped at the Badger Creek which is a small creek about 5 minutes drive from home. I cast a Bibio Hopper upstream and near the fallen branches in the larger pools. A trout came out of the tangled branches in one hole and took the sunken fly but I missed him.
No trout today but I enjoyed fishing these two small waters.
Cheers,
Steve.

[ofuros]

They're mighty elusive those brookies......rather like finding a pot of gold, especially in Australia.

[Satoshi]

Spod,
Sorry for the bad luck, but it's always fun for a fly fisher to try a new water to find a secret.

[spod]

I've heard of another potential brook trout stream that's not far away. This time the report included a photo of a decent sized brookie. Must give it a try before the stream trout season ends in a couple of weeks time.
Cheers,
Steve.
PS Since I posted the above comment, I've discovered that the brook trout in this stream were 200 escapees from a nearby trout farm.

[joe]

Spod,

I like knowing were the Brookies came from.

Thanks,

Joe D

[spod]

The brookies in this stream, the Rubicon River, Victoria, Australia came from a nearby trout hatchery. We had alot of rain a few weeks ago and some of the hatcheries seem to have escapee problems when this happens. This info wont be much use to you in Arizona but at least you now know where these brook trout are! What's the fishing like in Arizona?
Cheers,
Steve.
PS I should have mentioned in my previous post that I live in the Land Downunder.