Mouse Fly Tied with Deer Hair, used to imitate a small rodent on the surface of the water while fishing for brown trout at night.
Brown trout caught on a mouse fly by a great angler and regular client

Mousing for Brown Trout

Mousing for brown trout can be an effective way to catch the big predators when the daylight hours and water conditions don’t offer much in the way of fishiness. That said, it is fishing, and it does require some learning. The ceiling is very high, but when it sounds like a brick was thrown into the water near your fly, and the fly ends up in the boat because of a jumpy hook set…well that’s what we call a learning opportunity. It’s also a catching opportunity.

Mousing for brown trout on the tailwaters of Northeast TN has some similarities and differences to the overgrown banks of michigan trout water, and the famous western streams. One of the primary similarities is that our mousing takes place at night, and is generally speaking done in lower water conditions. Now, that qualifer is relative to the tailwater definition of ‘lower’, which is simply ‘not generating’. Sure, we have influences from creeks and tributaries, and yes, during dry spells where there is no generation resulting in dam release of water for a continued period of time, the river does get a bit bonier. But the tailwater is either high or low, while the western postcards, and most of the famous upper midwest, are comprised of Freestone streams. The flows in these water do change, but that ‘low water mousing’ can be such a great way to catch predators because when it’s low at night, it’s always low. Much of our fishing is done after releases are over for the day, as the water is falling out and the sun is giving up on trying to keep those distant ridges illuminated. From that point, until pre-dawn, the river is alive in a different sort of way, with strange noises and an occasional pair eyes that definitely were too big to be a dog. When the rivers are pulsing, or otherwise regularly releasing some water through the afternoons, we don’t necessarily have the feast or famine mentality of those always-low-and-gin-clear streams, but it’s a much happier and safer way to grab a bite to eat if you’re a brown trout who is very bad at fighting ospreys.

Every time a trout comes up to the surface, it’s risking it’s life. Every time is comes out into the current to eat a streamer, it’s risking it’s life. If you’ve been on my boat, you’ve heard me say that 'I’ll take another 18 inches’ after you put a streamer 19 inches from the bank. A large part of what we do with dry flies, with streamers, and with mousing, is to put something that looks like food near where a fish might be. That’s task 1. Task 2 is to do it in a way that is the most effective. This is done with your cast, fly selection, retrieval, kill cadenece - lots of stuff involved in Task 2. Task 3? We can’t control it as much as we’d like, and its less of a task. It sure would be nice to 1) put flies near fish and 2) make em think it’s food while 3) conditions encourage predatory feeding behavior. Choosing to invest either a half of your full day (streamer and dry flies from late afternoon to sunset, then mousing), or a full night, takes care of task 3. While considering dates, please note that new moons, along with nights during which the moon is on the other side of the earth, are preferable. Yes, we catch em with the moon out, but if we’re going through the trouble of scheduling around night fishing for the sake of prime conditions, we should schedule around prime conditions. Please let me know if you have questions, are interested, or are ready to book!