2026 Vermont / NY Brookie Bum Adventure

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Some of you might know already, or remember from my post of last summers adventure, but my wife and cousins and I have been on a quest to catch an Eastern Brook Trout in their native range here in the US. A veritable but unrecognized Brookie Slam if you will. This years trip took us to the Green Mountain National Forest of Vermont and the Adirondack Park of New York. We made a campground base close to Middlebury, Vermont as a base camp for the week.





This trip was totally worth the drive, and we were able to check the brook trout box for both Vermont and New York, as well as see a bunch of cool stuff. I took a lot of pictures, but I couldn't upload them all, but the pictures posted will highlight the trip pretty well. To a some degree making a trip like this involves going in a little blinded, but using knowledge from past trips and methods for finding fish here in WV, as well as info learned from last summer's trip, along with some great intel from a fellow online brookie angler who offered to help in my quest, and some info I gleaned from TU / EBJTV I had outlined several streams on maps / gazeteers. I am pleased to say not 1 stream we fished was fishless, and there were lots of fish to be caught. The brookies were overall smaller than the Maine / New Hampshire brookies we encountered last summer but they were still fun to catch on our 0 / 1 / 2 wt rods. Since we were there as a group, we elected to break up into smaller groups (My Wife and I) / (Chris and his son and Jason) since the streams were gonna be smaller and we didn't want to be fishing on top of each other. Over the course of 6 days of fishing, my wife Andrea and I caught 154 fish (142 brookies, 11 wild rainbows, and 1 juvenile Atlantic Salmon) across 2 states.



The weather didn't start off so great, as it rained a great deal during the 1st night, and off and on a good bit over the next 2 days. We made the best of it, and I'll say it paid off. Day 1 the water was high, and I wound up resorting dredging with a Thin Mint Wooly Bugger to catch my 1st Vermont brookie.






We decided to explore some other streams I had highlighted and on a forest service road I spotted a grouse. I think it had poults with it because I could see the grass moving behind her and she was making a vocalization I've never heard. We stopped at a nice scenic overlook of a beaver pond, / bog, and took a few pictures.





After a few pictures, we drove on and went to a new stream. Andrea soon found brookies in this stream and she was able to check the box for herself, and then we proceeded to catch almost a dozen small brookies in about a 1/2 hour.

 

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Day 2 found us brainstorming to find new streams to explore as the water levels were thankfully dropping from the persistent rains. We found more than a few streams to split up and check out. Before we split up, we wanted to go check out some local sights and signs and immerse in some history.











We split up into our respective fishing groups, and Andrea and I found a stream that looked promising. It had sister headwater forks and we picked the left hand fork to start with.





We caught a few fish, then decided to go check out the other headwater fork and the fishing was better in the other fork of the stream but it began to rain a good bit, so we didnt get to explore the 2nd fork like we wanted so we made a mental note and decided to come back here the next day. We ended the day at the campground around the fire and made a nice camp dinner (andoullie, shrimp, peppers, onions, butter, garlic, and penne pasta).

 

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Day 3

Andrea and I decided to go back to where we were the day before and fish further upstream above where the rain made us quit the day before. Today's fishing was impressive numbers wise and the scenery wasn't half bad either. The hole at the bottom right of the picture was much bigger than you can see, but it was LOADED with brookies. Andrea and I caught almost a dozen from that hole, then caught 8 more in the hole you can see between the cascades.











After a great day of fishing / rock jumping / hiking, we headed back to the truck and it began to rain. We spent the afternoon driving around stopping at local stores, buying souvenirs, sampling some local maple syrup, and because it was too rainy to cook at the campground, we got dinner at a fantastic place called "The Forge" in one of the local towns. On the way back to camp we spotted a mother Woodcock (I think) and she had 5 babies (no pictures) that weren't 2 inches tall. That was cool to see.

 

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Day 4 we decided to head west into New York to go explore (barely skimmed the surface I should say) the Adirondacks. We crossed a lot of farmland on the Vermont side headed towards Lake Champlain. It was beautiful country for sure.





Looking back, I wish we had fished more over in New York. The Adirondacks were beautiful and rugged. I had a few places to check out thanks to a 24hr campfire board member who I reached out to previously. His intel was good, and Andrea was the first to check off the NY brookie and she caught a really nice one.







My first New York fish wasn't a brookie but something else. Based on the deeply forked tail and absence of spots on the adipose fin, I believe i caught a juvenile Atlantic Salmon. It wasn't big, but it was also not something I can catch here at home in WV.



We decided to go explore a few more streams in the immediate area and it wasn't long before I checked off the brookie box for New York. First we did a little roadside brainstorming / plotting / navigating.




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Day 4 continues

We stopped off at what the signs called a "pond" but here in most of WV we would call this a lake. I was able to spot a Loon, but it wasn't close enough to take a good picture. Then we checked out a roadside pull off and took some pictures of a waterfall that we had fished up to the base of.









On the way back to Vermont we stopped as we were leaving New York to take the obligatory "tourist" picture. We also snapped a few pictures of Crowne Point going back across Lake Champlain







We made it back to camp and grilled Ribeyes, Filets, and Shrimp over the fire in celebration for completing the mission.





We followed that up with a nice evening around the fire.

 

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Day 5

We had already accomplished what we set out to do so anything else at this point was just a bonus. We decided to go back to where we had caught several on Day 3. We elected to fish further upstream into water we hadn't fished yet.









Andrea had been using a Royal Trude fly I tied and she had fished it all day the day prior in NY, and today it finally bit the dust and it wouldn't float anymore. Id conservatively say she caught 30 fish on this fly.



Andrea and I ended the day with 25 fish for each of us on this stream. We went on the hunt for some dead/down wood to burn around the fire. We found some, but we also found a small garter snake while we were looking for the wood. Thankfully, this was the only snake we saw the entire trip.

 

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Day 6

Some nice local folks in the campground had told us about a little cafe to get a great cup of coffee, so Andrea and I did just that. We started the day with a cup of joe and a set of waterfalls in this quaint little town. We were kinda at the point of gearing up for packing up and mentally preparing for the long (14hr) drive home back to WV so we didn't fish long today. We elected to go check out a blue line along a forest service road that no one from our group had checked out during the week so far.



I had barely got my boots wet in this stream when I caught the 1st fish of the day, a wild rainbow. This stream was full of them. Shortly after, Andrea and I both began to catch both rainbows and brookies.





Back in the winter, Andrea wanted to try her hand at fly tying. She picked an Adams of all patterns to try. She completed it, with massive sail boat looking wings, then said "It looks terrible" and put it in her fly box anyways. On this last day, she decided she would tie the fly that she tied herself on her tippet and she continued to fish that fly for the next hour or so. She wound up bringing 11 to hand including a really nice brookie on the fly she tied. I think its safe to say she's hooked on fly fishing, but now also the concept of fly tying.









We quit after she caught the brookie in the last picture, headed back to camp and enjoyed the last evening around the fire.

The next morning, it rained most of the way south on our way out of the state of Vermont. We made it home safely, and then reality of vacation ending began to set it. Until next time...

 

[DrMike]

A grand adventure for all of you. Great that you accomplished your original goal.

 

[wvbuckbuster]

Great pictures and storyline. Enjoyed it. Thanks for sharing.

 

[NYDAN]

Sounds like a great and successful adventure. Congratulations to you and your group for catching so many fish.