Hard Water Brookies

Speckle trout is what everyone called the brook trout around home, I remember it being a shocking revelation when a fishing writer pointed out they were one and the same in an article I was reading. Over three decades have passed since I'd caugth one, if memory serves me correctly I was around fifteen or sixteen years old and had caught it in Uncle Bruce’s old mill pond. The little pond, formed when a spring creek was damned up for a farm that doesn’t exist any longer was always known as Uncle Bruce’s, my grandfather’s brother even though he had passed and his son Cousin Billy now owned it. A decade or so back we drove by to find the dam had burst and was back to a trickle of stream. Like most of the streams around home which were once full of speckle trout it was surely silted in, warm and teaming with creek chub.

My first speckle trout (brook trout) in over 30 years!

The first game fish I caught was a brook trout, there’s a faded polaroid of me holding up on a forked stick in front of Uncle Norm’s old square body Chevy. I am clearly stoked in the photo and hooked on chasing fish. Growing up my friends and I would pedal our bikes all over in search of trout, and occasionally we were even successful with our heavy line and worms. These days I spend most of my time using a fly rod, with the first good cold snap in a few years hitting it was the perfect time to break out the ice auger and short rods. There were two lakes I’ve wanted to pull some fish from for the freezer and this was the perfect excuse.

The first foray was uneventful, a bit of a drive, frozen toes and not even a nibble. While we may not have caught anything, I wouldn’t class it as a waste of time, we were out in nature and got lots of fresh air. No complaints from me. The second turned out to be a little more exciting. Brook trout aren’t really a western fish, there are a few lakes that have been stocked in British Columbia and one of them was within driving distance. It was a short walk in with the toboggan, moved holes a few times and as my wife was taking some photos of the sun setting over the mountains I got my first strikes. The fights were short but spirited, the fish between eight and ten inches long. In a twenty minute window we landed three brook trout which I promptly cleaned.

The next twenty-four hours were spent excitedly explaining to my wife how stoked I was to cook them up. I was curious if memories of their delicious meat was real or conjured up and mixed with the youthful emotions of providing your own food. The following evening after twisting some pink salt and cracked black pepper, stuffing them with lemon slices and butter, wrapping them in tinfoil and broiling in the oven, they were laying beside slices of blacktail deer backstrap. From my first forkful memories flooded back, the firm flesh pulling off the bones and mild yet delicious flavour took me back to being ten years old, remembering dad cooking up the occasional one I brought home.

See you on the water or the mountains.

-Matthew Mallory