many of the rivers and creeks surrounding sheridan wyoming have native brown cutthroat and rainbow
trout today i'm stringing up a six-weight rod with a weight forward floating six-weight line
the mice we are using our custom pattern tied by brett smith from sheridan
brett is known as the developer of the palomino midge
and his hantavirus mouse has proven deadly for trout in wyoming and beyond
peter october in sheridan county wyoming and you asked me to tie on a mouse
that's craziness well not here you know in in our area we like to fish mice quite a bit
quite often yeah not just at night not just at night no we don't need a full moon absolutely
not um we throw them during the day yeah we debarb them and it's a local pattern tied by
a guy named brett smith yeah we call him sydney so this is his pattern he calls the haunted virus but
we call it sydney the mouse he's kind of a mascot for our fly shop so how do you want me to fish
this a couple different ways you can dead drift it you can swing it or you can slow strip it back um
whatever you do a little bit of pop's good give it some lifelike movement and uh see if we can
hoax a big brown to come up and eat it all right man show me all right so this time of year the
water temps like i'll take a temp real quick normally i do for safety points like with fish
in the summer we're fishing a lot of hoppers and dry flies but we don't fish our company policy is
anything above 65 degrees we stop fishing right if it means we give a refund we give a refund but
this time of year i take temperatures to see how lethargic the fish are going to be yep and so if
i get any temps that are in the high 30s you can't move your flies too fast um but this time of year
we're going to be like low 40s i guess we'll be able to trick a few fish to come up to mice
yeah see we're at like 41 degrees 42 degrees it's like perfect for mouse fishing
you fish them upstream straight across downstream any way you can do it to
access a place where you think the fish are sitting get it in that slack water
fish nice that was a cuddy maybe kind of a light colored brown or cut throat
warm-up spot huh well i got a scuba diver that hides in that hole
brown chart a little brown nice in
october
like that little brown that's fantastic
good start brown tread are most comfortable in the 15 degrees celsius or 59 degree fahrenheit
temperature range this is when they feed readily and are willing to move around
in a pool or run when temperatures get as warm as 65 degrees fahrenheit
angling of fish may cause them harm important to note that as temperatures rise the fish will be
at more risk of post release mortality conversely as the temperatures drop into the low to mid 30s
trout metabolism slows down drastically and they may not be willing to expend the energy to
chase a meal when the water gets cold a general rule of thumb is to slow things down big time
but the water is in the low 40s and today it's perfect for mousing nice fish
all right who would have thought man brown trout on a mouse in october that's fantastic pretty
awesome right oh my gosh yeah and it's it's funny because it's it's an immediate reaction
right the water's 41 degrees they're not lethargic yet no and as soon as that fly hit it was on
maybe we'll get into a big bruiser today that's a good fish yeah it is look at that oh
cedar gosh all right let's take a look for my first sheridan brown trout here in wyoming man
that's a beautiful beautiful fish look at that all wild all wild and angry hungry that's pretty cool
sweet fish man
thanks buddy gone dude on that mouse hey what a fantastic fish thanks man
we have three big tail waters close by and then the free stones we have access to are
i mean without even giving names there's there's tons of free stones we can fish with
all wild trout populations and it's amazing it's some of the best dry fly fishing you can get
during certain times of year and some of the best streamer fishing you can get certain times of the
year and that's just within our area there's other parts of the states that are probably just as good
but sheridan is pretty special with so many opportunities to find fishable water in the
sheridan wyoming area it pays to cut the guessing and hire a guide not only a local
expert on the water but one that can teach you about fishing and their own backyard their own way
i'd start at the top and i'd work down i usually don't start at the bottom with a mouse
usually at the top i get a nice downstream end and then i dance it all the way through the run
um if you rush into water too quickly i feel like you spooked
the fish you let them know you're coming so i like to sneak up come from the side
so these fish are not two liters shy then they're not two liter shot no
and with a mouse you know we're disturbing the water pretty good with a big rodent on top
like how spooky are these fish am i ruining this no that's why i like to stay back like
you're doing and you're casting out in front of you always even farther is fine but they're
spooky i mean the water is clear any kind of stomping of your feet these things are gone
when fishing late season mice presentation is key to incite a strike these fish are not
leader shy and your job is to cover the water effectively fishing a mouse you've got a couple
of different options for retrieval of of said mouse i'm going to go through the the three that
i'm using today when i'm fishing upstream what i like to do is cast 45 at least 45 degrees up
put a bow or a downstream mend in the uh in the line and then jiggle the tip of the rod to give
that fly a skittering dancing motion that's the first way the second way is if i'm if i'm uh
fishing upstream again what i'll do is i'll let it dead dead drift all the way down until it
gets 90 degrees or perpendicular to me and then i'll do the same i'll get it get that fly moving
oftentimes the dead stick of the mouse not doing anything coming back to life
is enough to get these brown trout going now the third way i'm doing it is just like
swinging for atlantic salmon or brook trout where with a high rod tip you create a wake
such that that mouse skitters across creating a v behind it that drives brown trout crazy
i'll throw a streamer in there in a sec when here
oh god oh buddy yeah i had a baby you called it man you said there was a fish in this pool
now we're gonna barbecue look how he drops his nose and digs in look at it's a beautiful
buttery brown oh man oh what a take this water is so clear oh what a fish you could
see that fish come up and roll on it absolutely amazing on a mouse can't beat it look at this
oh my gosh beautiful brown what a fantastic brown trout road meter a road kneader
now one of the great things about fishing in october in wyoming is that you know if your
hands are wet and you handle these fish you're not doing them any harm as long as you're keeping
their gills in in the water we can unbutton this guy and i want to show you something really neat
here's the good side of this beautiful brown trout now this guy has had a life of adversity because
if you look on his left side he's blind i mean it shows the tenacity and how strong brown trout
can be for this guy to get this big with only one eye just incredible all right buddy you know what
we're gonna let you go i'll pull you into some deeper water here let you go and you can
feed up for the winter time all right buddy thank you so much what a fantastic fish
it swims way back to the deep unbelievable absolutely perfect
coming up the snow starts to fall and we hit the mountains
as the day comes to an end the snow gets heavier and we decide to fish a bit back toward the
vehicles i generally am not a proponent of fishing back down yeah right but you know what we didn't
catch anything out of here on the way up so why not give it a shot and any time you can catch
a brown trout on a mouse take it let me see if i can get them up here
you know peter we were talking earlier today that
you know it's a lot of people think that when you go to an exotic destination of any kind
whether it's whether it's wyoming or mexico right it's all about the size of the fish well it's not
many times it's about the technique that you use to take and release these this fish i've said it
many times we're in october here it's snowing it's 32 degrees and we're taking fantastic brown trout
on mice flies you can't beat that anywhere in the world it's not about the size it's about the play
it's about getting out just pops out and dancing with wonders just like this
so don't focus on the size of the fish focus on the experience focus on the method of
catching these fish and letting them go brown showed on a mouse pattern i would have never
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