As an example of succumbing to hope over experience, I gave the North Hoosic in North Adams a try yesterday afternoon, even though the last time I caught a fish there was the first week in September.
It was sunny, blue skies, 78 degrees - - glorious weather - - but the water level was disturbingly low.
Suffice it to say I preserved my fishless streak on the North Branch. A pity, because in past years it has been a fairly consistent producer right up into the winter.
This afternoon, I fished the South Hoosic for a little over an hour and a half, from Cheshire Harbor in Cheshire down to a little past Elm Rock in Adams.
The weather was virtually a carbon copy of yesterday, although the water levels on the South Branch are still a bit higher than on the North. (They were noticeably lower at the Cheshire Harbor dam, but it was not so obvious further downstream).
The only action of the day was a little below Elm Rock, where, after six separate attempts, I finally managed to land a 13" brown trout.
(It was the lower end of the same run where I caught a larger brown last week).
To be honest, I counted myself lucky, because I found the sheer persistence of the brown kind of odd.
Although I have had brook trout return repeatedly even after I have hooked and lost them, in my experience that happens a lot less frequently with browns and rainbows.
Usually, once I "prick" a brown or a rainbow but it gets away, that's the last I will see of him for the rest of the day.
It's truly rare to get not just a second, but a third, fourth, fifth and sixth chance to land a given fish.
