I like small streams. Given the choice of floating some famous trout stream "out west" or exploring the unknown up a small creek, I'll take the small creek every time. I like the feeling of the unknown when you round a bend or climb over a fall. I like going back to a creek I've seen on a drive in the mountains when I didn't have time to fish. I like coming back to the stream as the seasons change to see what it looks like. And I like the wild colorful fish that live there and the flex they put in a fiberglass rod. It seems like the colors of fish are different in every stream, even if they are located close to one another. I like looking at pictures of small streams from lands afar. Many of my hours are occupied by thoughts of standing in a familiar small stream where I've had countless memorable days in the past. More hours are consumed looking for or building a fiberglass rod to try on a certain stream.

Let this be known as the small stream thread for small stream fiberglass fanatics. Feel free to post pictures of your favorite stream, trip reports of a new stream you've fished, pictures of fish from small streams, and pictures of fiberglass rods you fished on a small stream. Pictures of small streams in other countries are especially welcome (I'm talking to you, Japan).

Excellent! Small waters are my favorite and preferred way of fishing for both warm and cold water.

That's some of the best solitary angling out there ...

Les

Yup ...

NoddingMyHeadInTotalAgreement

I love small streams too. I also enjoy large and open western waters as I find them to be very easy on the psyche, but it's the intimate small streams with their rock gardens and beauty in miniature that I find almost spiritual. It always amazes me when I look up from my fishing to realize just how much time has gone by ...

The stream is in the coastal mountains of California. It has everything I need to recharge the batteries; a bit of solitude, some nature, and lots of pretty little trout. Best of all it's close enough to home that I can fish it after work.

Higher in the drainage the fish are darker with larger spots.

beautiful places! I love fishing those mountain creeks too! always unexpected on the next bend!

Nice, Holdover. I wouldn't have guessed California based on those first pics. That second rainbow looks healthy!

DGCpa, Nice pics too! I love finding smooth, slower sections of small streams like those in your pics, especially when they are full of browns rising to dries! I don't target them while they're spawning, but I definitely do while they are feeding pre and post spawn.

What a great fishing post! Love the photo's also

I love the solitude and beauty and peace found there and the feeling that at least here there is hope for the world.

"Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patters that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery."
— Cormac McCarthy

I agree, small streams are the way to go. It's real Trout fishing IMHO. I cut my teeth for years up and down the east. But don't think for a moment there are no small streams out west. It's just that no one writes about them. Thank Goodness!

Small stream fly fishing is probably my favorite type of fishing as well. I hope to have some excellent photos to contribute next spring when my life slows down a bit. Until then, I wanted to share a couple photos of two new small stream reels I picked up. They are both Abel TR Light reels. There's something aesthetically pleasing to me about a tiny 2.5" reel on a short ultralight fly rod.

I hope to pair this reel with a 6'8" 3wt. white glass blank that Mike McFarland is making me.




And I already plan on pairing this reel with a 5'9" 3wt. yellow glass blank that Mike McFarland made me. I'll probably start on this rod pretty soon. The rod blank feels amazing and I think it is going to be a lot of fun on a few small creeks that I love fishing.




Colt

A few of my favorite small stream spots ...