More Uodome and a mind-bogglingly amazing wild trout stream!

I was invited to fish with a new friend I made at the last TU meeting in NYC. We were to fish a small stream. I had told him about my last adventure, and he assured me he'd outdo it. I was obviously extremely excited. The weather was definitely cooperating as well.

As we hiked into the stream we came upon perfect trout water and I was into some little brookies right away. It was a sign of a healthy stream.

Cascading pools and a bit of a gorge forming.

Hits in every pool, fish netted in most.

Fish seemed to have two or three color variations. Some were darker with the colored bottom...

... others more pink.

 The only brown of the day. This river was a tributary to another larger river, could some baby browns have made it up here? Also, have I mentioned how much I've been enjoying this new rod? It is taking the beating I'm giving it very, very well.

 Adrien had indicated we were going to a very special fishing location, but I had been too distracted by the fish to think much about it... until we came upon a cave of epic proportions.

 Not only was there Uodome, but the cave was a sight to behold!

Talk about fishing spots... first careful cast brought a fine specimen to net.

It often seems that in these small streams, where brookies don't often break the 12" mark, the trophies of each pool can be indicated not only by length, but by the size of their tails. This one is collapsed a bit in the net. It was HUGE!

My day pack is a little bulky. I'm waiting for a slightly customized pack that I ordered from Chris Zimmer.

Picked up another fish in the pool in front of the cave.

We decided to go all out and hiked a seriously steep embankment to climb over and beyond the cave. We figured there would be some epic pools that most people didn't put the effort into reaching.

 

On the way over there was mineral deposit art.

Adrien peeks back to see if I can make it around the fallen tree. A treacherous moment. In fact there were lots of those. I wouldn't want to do this stuff alone. Too many opportunities to slip and fall.

you can see the chasm above.

It became immediately apparent that it was worth the effort. The first pool, which was dubbed the un-fishable pool, clearly held large fish. Only way in there was a rope and harness. Best left for another time.

I hooked into the largest fish of the day here in a calm spot between two rocks and next to the splashing falls. I thought it was a snag at first. I don't know how it got off, but it was probably the fact that I flattened the barb on my hooks.

Above that was another overhang pool. It had nice log cover from some really large old trees that had been washed down there ages ago.

I let Adrien fish these pools and climbed up ahead.

One small brookie came from this little pocket in the rock.

Another run under a cave produced a brookie.

Beautiful scenery around every bend and over every rock formation.

I got a few nice ones in this pool.

This next pool might have been my favorite. I picked it apart and pulled fish from the right side near the shelf, on the left side in front of the rock....

...between the rocks, and then in the center as well. 

Almost unbelievably, it kept going like this. Run after run, pool after pool, cliffs and caves galore.

There were small brookies in pretty much every spot that I expected. I'd like to take a moment to point out that while buggers were working fine, the most productive fly of the day was again, Rich Garfield's Ausable Ugly.

In this pool, Adrien caught fish on the left side - some really nice ones. I think his fish of the day came from there. 

I was able to fish the right side at the same time and also caught fish. Crazy!

After a while the stream finally flattened out a bit and returned to a more "standard" format of pools and riffles with a plunge here and there. It was picturesque the whole way up.

We had both missed fish of a decent size in this first pool and had decided to fish it again before leaving. Adrien hooked a few trout and then we took a break.We were each into over 15 fish at this point, and I had lost count around 20.

Adrien is french, and showed me his french style dry flies, which present the hackle in a slightly forward manner. Its not quite as pronounced as a tenkara fly, but you can see what I'm getting at.

His dry flies were beautifully tied, it was a shame we didn't get to use them this day, but the fish just weren't rising yet. The water was still in the 40's, after all. I was no purist this day, fishing bead head flies almost the entire time.

I wasn't into the larger fish I had hooked earlier, likely because Adrien had taken them a moment before. I hooked a couple of fingerlings and then decided to call it a day. We stopped on the way for some BBQ since it was late and we were tired from a long day of crawling and sneaking around the stream, climbing over waterfalls and ascending and descending the various gorge areas we were fishing.

 All the sore muscles will be well worth it for one of the greatest days of small stream fishing I have ever seen. Thanks to my new friend Adrien for taking me to his spot!