Big browns are a fish with an affinity for mean water

Mean weather, mean water, and mean-looking flies are the keys to catching trophy brown trout.

People might want to watch the 1985 thriller “The Mean Season” because it treats some journalistic ethical issues as one of its themes. They might want to watch it for the fine acting work from the youthful Kurt Russell and Mariel Hemingway. Or, they might want to watch it simply because it’s a darned good movie.

I think of the film often because of the violent storm that occurs right during the movie’s climax. Sure, that’s a cinematic device as old as theater itself, but it fits. It was a mean season, indeed, and the weather underscored how mean it was.

The movie is set in Florida, so it depicted a warm-weather storm. But set that discrepancy aside. A mean season – semi- or near-total darkness, cold rain, maelstromic currents, sometimes high winds – those describe big brown trout conditions. In fact, as I think back over my encounters with trophy-size browns, almost every one involved at least one of those elements.

The more elements you add, the better the chances of encountering a Moby Dick.

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The latest instance occurred last night as I write this. The late-spring daytime temperatures never escaped the 40s. I’d spent the afternoon chasing brook trout with little success.

The hatch I’d encountered a couple of days earlier that brought fish to the surface? Nada. It didn’t reoccur. I came home to get some supper. During my meal, I tied a handful of big, black woolly buggers. I was done with the pipsqueaks. I was going brown trout hunting, by golly.

Some people are brown trout gurus. They find big brown trout and stalk them. They sight fish to them, often using dry flies or tiny nymphs. They make careful casts. I have a different method.

Now, I’m a teetotaler, mind you. I don’t drink alcoholic beverages. But I can’t escape this metaphor: I have a beer-drinking mentality when it comes to angling for big brown trout, and the mentality better befits the working-class suds historically brewed in Milwaukee than the stuff the sophisticated folks drink that’s brewed in Belgium.

I find turbulent water, and I swing a fly through it. Usually the fly I choose is a big, ugly streamer. I don’t use any finesse. Either the trout are there and they strike, or they aren’t or they don’t. I use flies, but the same system works with crankbaits. In fact, it probably works better with crankbaits.

I’d be doing a disservice to readers and the river I fished last night if I mentioned its name. It’s a small river. Plus, it only fishes well during the unholy conditions described above. That makes it mostly a first-three-weeks-of-May stream. But in the few minutes of daylight I had left when I got there, I caught two fine trout.

The biggest one was a true giant. It dwarfed my trout net and I didn’t get a decent picture of it. The second one filled my net and was a solid 14 or 16 inches long – maybe longer. It felt good to catch them.

I’ve spent the last couple of seasons mostly fishing for brook trout, and I seldom catch one longer than 10 inches. Editors and readers are probably getting tired of seeing the pictures of tiny trout I keep attaching to my articles, so the big browns were especially welcome.

Anyway, on one occasion, and only one, I caught a trophy trout from that river when it wasn’t a cold, wet May. On that occasion, we’d been having an unusually cold and rainy August. The river almost approximated springtime conditions.

Feeling hopeful, I went to the river. At the deepest, darkest, most turbulent pool, I had a strike. I felt the hit. I saw the flash of the fish. I felt my fly rake the roof of its bony mouth, but my hook failed to dig in.

I went home. I bided my time. The weather cooperated. It remained rainy and cold. Two weeks passed. My family and I were headed to Grand Rapids, Mich., to watch a Whitecaps game. The trip would take us right across the river. I threw my rod in the car and promised my wife that I would take just time enough to try a few casts in the surly location.

On my second or third cast, I hooked a monster. I’m guessing it was the same one I’d missed on my earlier trip, but I’ll never be able to prove it.

After a royal battle, I managed to land it. I didn’t measure it. I like to get my fish released quickly and seldom fool around with measuring them. But it was a massive fish with a hooked jaw. I think it remains the biggest brown trout I’ve ever caught in my life.

That said, I can recite a litany of big brown trout experiences, and they all involve mean water. There was the time I was fishing Gladwin County’s Cedar River in Michigan. I worked my fly through a scary looking bend. A big fish slammed my fly and broke me off. I never got a look at that one.

Was it a pike?

Well, maybe. I can’t say it wasn’t.

But there was also the time I was fishing the huge pool on the Au Sable below Burton’s Landing. It was June 21, the longest day of the year. The weather is usually hot by then, but not that year. It was downright cold. Thirty miles north in Gaylord, that night, a frost nipped tomato plants.

I’d driven up to the river and pitched a tent. I froze my butt off that night. I had a solar power shower bag sitting on the hood of my car the next day. I waited until noon to take my shower and the water was still cold. But while I was fishing that deep, dark pool the night before on the longest day of the year, I hooked a big brown trout. It threw my hook, but not before I’d gotten it close enough for me to make a positive ID.

Years ago a downed tree somewhere near Louie’s Landing stretched nearly all the way across the Au Sable. One cold May day when the river was still high I threw a bushy, size 12 Adams into the frothy water near the tree and pulled it under. A big brown slammed the fly and broke me off just that fast. And I had a big brown trout on for a few moments when I was fishing that scary pool near the green cottage on the Pere Marquette.

Oh, there was also the huge brown trout I hooked while fishing the hex hatch on the South Branch of the Au Sable. A series of thunderstorms rocked the area that night. The water was high and dangerous. Braving the lightning, I insanely stood in a shallow bit of calm water near shore. Between squalls, the big mayflies were emerging. A monster brown trout chose my artificial fly from among all the real flies on the water. I never should have been fishing that night, but I lived to tell about it.

I’ve had many other experiences with big brown trout, some successful and some leaving me with a broken line or a straightened hook. Nearly every one happened while I was fishing mean water.

That’s something to remember on a dark and stormy day.