In recent years, an important focus of the central Maine fisheries staff at the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife has been to survey the region's numerous brooks and streams. To our delight, our survey work has revealed a surprising number of populations of wild brook trout. But this is on the basis of biological surveys.

Electrofishing observations may be of interest to some anglers, but it's not nearly as convincing as a straightforward probe with a fly rod.

So, when last weekend's promise of rain did not materialize, I decided to put off yard chores for the morning and go fishing. I know of several small streams within a few miles of the house that I wanted to check out. I had fished several of them before and had had some really fine brook trout angling, but there are others that I had never spent any time at. It was high time -- plus, the work wasn't going anywhere, it could wait at least until the afternoon.

I packed a lunch, rounded up the dog and my fly rod and headed out on foot. I passed my parked ATV on the way out and decided that it was a perfect day for a walk. With fine weather and a pursuing cloud of black flies, I headed down my road to a network of woods paths and logging roads. Just in case I ever wanted to return to my intended destination, I took my GPS along. Of course, I really didn't have an exact "intended destination" at the time.

In a short time, I crossed several small brooks. All of them looked like they might hold stream brookies and some I knew did, but I kept walking. My goal was trying to find the right combination of an open-tree canopy for casting and a light breeze for the black flies.

Finally, I found the breeze, but not the mature tree canopy I had wanted for casting. But the stream itself was the picture of a wild brook trout fishery. It was about 10 feet wide. Trees and shrubs crowded the banks and grew low to the water. With pools between drops and a number of snags, there looked to be lots of terrific hiding places for squaretails.

I tied on the smallest black woolly bugger I had, thinking that it was too still darned big for this little brook. Casting was out of the question. It was strip and flip downstream with a staggered retrieve back up. After two strikes and no sets, I put on a bead head prince, and bounced it off the bottom as it drifted downstream.

Switching to the nymph and drifting it changed everything. The brook came just "came alive" with fish. Within an hour, I had hooked and released a half-dozen beautiful wild brook trout. The largest of these was eight inches in length -- not bad for such a small stream. I decided that next time out here, since I had marked the site on GPS, I would bring my spinning rod and see what kind of luck I might have with a lure.

This sort of fishery exists throughout the region, and the state for that matter. For the most part, it is an underutilized resource. If you think about your own "neck of the woods," you can most likely think of a brook or stream that is similar to the one I speak of above. That brook or stream might even be in your own backyard. Next time you have a moment, gear up and take that walk, you might be surprised at what you find. Just be sure to ask for permission to access private property.