I guided Owen on Tuesday. Owen is pretty much a beginner, but very enthusiastic — just the kind of student I like to teach. We spent our afternoon on the water from the Riverton bridge to several hundred yards above. It was a chilly, overcast day, and we started off with some indicator nymphing. That was surprisingly a blank — and then a trout slashed at the indicator. We tied on a mini streamer, but no love. A bait angler below us got into two fish, but we decided to head upriver.

At the next mark, Owen locked into a fish on the nymph rig, but the trout sadly became unbuttoned. By this time, there was a decent amount of trout-eating-emergers activity. It was caddis action, and I was surprised by the last on tiny BWOs. We moved over to wet fly, and were rewarded with some bumps, and then an eat. It might have been the ugliest stocked rainbow I’ve ever seen in this river — ragged tail and fins, fins missing, scales gone AWOL — but it was exciting to see Owen connect with his first Farmington River fish. We headed upstream again and got one more bump, but that was it. Great, job, Owen!

Then last night, I spoke to the fine people of the Croton Watershed TU Chapter. Croton TU knows that a fed presenter is a happy presenter, so they are hereby awarded the Legion of the Cheeseburger with IPA (Singlecut) Clusters, and all the privileges associated with that honor. According to the chapter president, the crowd was excellent, and from my point of view, very enthusiastic and welcoming. We had a good post-talk Q&A session, and I want to thank the people who bought a copy of the book. I’m already looking forward to my return.

Next up: Wednesday, October 21, Farmington River Anglers Association, 7pm, Brewery Legitmus, New Hartford, CT. This meeting is open to the public. And it’s at a brewery! If that’s not a doubleheader sweep, I don’t know what is. More info is here.