Small Streams

I've always loved fishing small streams, and I recently fished one of the smallest ones I've ever visited with a fly rod. I was staying near Kerhonkson, NY with my family and the area is filled with tiny streams that aren't on any maps. One afternoon I decided to get a better look at the closest one. It didn't look like much from the road, little more than a ditch really, but as I followed it into the woods I discovered that it merged with another even smaller stream and then ran along a large meadow. It was three feet wide at best, but it had all the structure and character of a typical mountain stream. And the setting couldn't have been more perfect. There were a couple kitchen sink size pools, and as the cows in the field looked on I kneeled down and drifted a small elk hair caddis through the gurgling water. I had a feeling there were trout here and sure enough, a bright brown trout parr smacked the fly right away. I pulled it to my hand for a quick photo and release. It was oddly satisfying to catch such a small fish in this tiny stream and I no longer felt the need to keep fishing. I meandered back to where I had entered the woods and noticed that the stream as seen from the road somehow looked a little bigger now.