Something in the Orange

Orange is the color of autumn. Orange pumpkins adorn front steps; fire-orange oak leaves set the fall landscape ablaze; brook trout’s bellies darken to a deep orange in preparation for spawning. But despite how seasonally-appropriate and functional my orange Black Diamond rain jacket is, perhaps it wasn’t the right choice for stalking ultra-spooky brown trout.

The weather on this late October day could be summed up by one word: miserable. The polar opposite of the previous day’s 80 degrees and bright sun, a bone-chilling drizzle soaked the central Massachusetts mountains, making 45 degrees feel more like 35. If there was one benefit to the wretched conditions, it was that I’d have virtually no competition. Having already unsuccessfully fished a nearby stream for 45 minutes (a popular one, at that), my only company had been a massive whitetail buck who immediately spooked at the sight of me. Must have been the jacket.

Now I found myself on a new stream, with the rain lightening slightly into a cold mist. My first time at this stream had been a brief trip a month prior. That said, in a half-hour of fishing, I caught one fat wild brown trout and spooked another. With more time this trip, I hoped to explore more water and find more fish.

Right off the bat, I fooled a 12-inch brown in a small pool between two short sets of riffles. The fish took a Higa’s SOS, a new addition to my ever-expanding list of confidence patterns. With the weather cooling, I expected the browns to be dressed in their vibrant spawning attire; however, this one was as pale as a Halloween ghost. 

Though I planned to work upstream, as one typically would when dead-drifting a nymph, it was hard to pass up a long pool downstream of me. Drifting the nymph under an overhanging log, I was quickly hooked up to another brown, a cookie-cutter of the first. So far, the fish seemed to be everywhere they were supposed to be.

Seeing as I was having success moving downstream, I figured I’d work down the next pool and then start heading back upstream. Well, one pool turned into two, then three, and soon I’d completely lost count. I was seeing fish – only trouble was, now they were everywhere I didn’t expect them. I’d stealthily wade towards a promising spot, expecting the trout to be holding in the seams or deep water. As soon as I’d get within casting range, a shadow would emerge from the six-inch-deep shallows where I was standing, thoroughly spooked. Must’ve been the orange jacket. Occasionally I’d walk back to the spot and see the same fish, but they’d never eat.

Eventually I did fool one more fish, quite possibly my smallest brookie of the year (also known as a brown trout snack). With that, I turned around to head back. Along the way, at a spot I’d been saving all day to fish, I encountered a surprise. This particular pool was lined with plenty of fallen timber, creating complex seams and shaded holes where the biggest trout in the stream undoubtedly lived. However, because of this surprise, it was unlikely that I’d catch them.

Perched atop the logs was an elegant Great Blue Heron. Its head was cocked in concentration, searching hard for its next meal. At first the bird angered me – why did it have to ruin what could have been a game-saving finale to an otherwise slow day? But the more I considered it, the more I realized I had no right to be angry. This heron, more so than the brown trout I pursued or the anglers that had placed them there decades ago, deserved to be there. Unlike the browns, it was a native, natural part of the ecosystem. Frankly, by stalking and eating those fish, it was doing its part to increase the stream’s biodiversity and give a fighting chance for other indigenous species, such as brook trout.

Regardless, I really wanted to catch those big browns. As I stood silently observing the heron, it eventually caught sight of me and took off. Must’ve been the orange jacket. I continued wading through the shallows, eyes fixed on the timber. However, I must have taken one step too many; out of a run that couldn’t have been more than eight inches deep, a massive, dark shape skirted upstream. Unbothered by the heron, this fish had been sitting right out in the open, only to be spooked by my stealthy steps. Whatever, I’ll just blame it on the jacket.