Inspiration for “Abstract Brown Flank – Blue”
which became the 2012 DeYoung Series Brown Trout Flank Abel Reel

When I stand in front of my easel, staring at a blank canvas, I search my mind for a specific experience to inspire and give life to the painting. This is the story of the brown trout that inspired me to paint “Abstract Brown Flank -Blue”.

One Saturday morning, just after high water, my friend John Loomis and I decided to drive up to middle Montana, and find out for ourselves what fishing opportunities existed there. We started by driving up to a ranch house on a particularly tasty looking stretch of nameless creek.

The ranch owner had no problem with us fishing, so we threw our gear on and headed upstream very optimistic about our day. Strangely though, run after run gave up no fish, not even a flash or any sign of fish at all. After a couple hours we decided to move upstream a few miles and see if the fishing was any better. But as we headed east in the truck, we were plagued with indecision, should we pull in and ask another rancher? Should we head way upstream??

We ended up at a public access, worm containers strewn all around the rip rap rocks under the bridge. My optimism now at the lowest point of the day I shrugged my shoulders and began working a streamer through a deep hole under the bridge. At the same time John headed up to the first riffle, and was hooked up almost immediately with a pretty little brown trout. We began working our way upstream and caught several browns in every pool.

After about a mile, the fishing was so good that I decided I wanted to try something different. A few browns had grabbed my streamer from the surface.. before it sank. This made me think they might be willing to take a mouse off of the surface! The only problem was that I don’t carry mouse patterns in my fanny pack, so I walked all the way back to the truck to get a couple from my gear bag.

I made it back up to a fresh pool and cast the mouse quartering downstream, letting the current swing the mouse down and across, as I twitched it and gave it a little life. After a few casts, and no takers, John ran his streamer through the same water and he proceeded to catch two nice browns. We moved on and I hit the next hole with the mouse and…no love.

Again, John worked the water over with a small black streamer and got three hits, and landed a fat 16″ brown. We moved on and I was losing enthusiasm fast, forgetting what that wonderful jolt of a brown trout hitting your fly felt like. After three casts on this new pool, I let the mouse swing all the way out into some shallow calm water. Before making my next cast, I looked upstream to see what the next pool looked like, and considered clipping the mouse off for a while and going back to the streamer.

At that very moment I heard an explosion in the water just downstream from me. By pure instinct I lifted the rod and felt the heavy thumps of a big brown trout trying to shake free from the fly. He fought very hard for the size of water he was in.. running up and down the pool, jumping and cartwheeling. When he finally came to hand I was delighted, he was a thick, heavily kyped, male brown trout of about 18″. Very likely the bully of this particular neighborhood. This was the first brown I’d ever caught on a mouse during the day.. and though it sure didn’t happen the way I’d planned it, it was one of the most memorable fish of the summer.