Category Archives: Fishing Reports

Farmington River Report 7/23/16: More mid-day magic

Today I had the pleasure of teaching the ways of the wet fly to a group from the NYC Chapter of TU. Thanks to everyone who participated; you all did a great job under some truly difficult (again) conditions. I saw improvement in all of you across the board — keep on keeping on, and the trout will surely smile upon you.

Speaking of smiles, we had a little of that mid-day magic again. Look what Jon found at the end of his three-fly team! This wild brown taped out at a full 21″. Taken in the fast water at the head of a pool around 11:30 this morning.

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Last fish of the day for Jon. Not as big, but just as wild. Look at the white tips on those fins.  One of very few actively feeding fish we saw today.

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Note: they’ve lowered the flow from the dam. 165cfs and 64 degrees in the TMA. Unfortunately, it looks like a scorcher this week. Let’s all do a rain dance — or at least tweak for cooler weather.

Farmington River Report 7/21/16: The best time to fish in summer is…noon?

Conventional wisdom holds that in summer, Farmington River trout will be most active early in the morning and late afternoons into dark. You won’t get any serious arguments from me. After all, I was plumbing the depths with my drop-shot nymph rig before 8am. Then again, I’ve always been fond of the old saw, “The best time to go fishing is when you can.” I stayed through 1pm, and my best fish of the day came at high noon under blazing, brilliant sunshine.

A Survivor Strain brown in the high teens, taken at noon of one of the warmest days of the summer in about two feet of water. Top dropper was the winning fly, a size 18 soft-hackled  Pheasant Tail.

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The action continues to be slow; I managed six fish in five hours. Of the dozen or so anglers I fished near yesterday, I saw only one hook up. I believe one of the keys to success this time of year is to aggressively cover water. I visited seven spots yesterday, blanking in two of them (the method was nymphing) and taking two on four casts in another. I also did some playing around fishing without my beloved indicator, using a section of 12-lb. yellow Stren as a sighter. (I still like the indicator better. So there.)

Farmington River 7/19/16: Persistence pays off

I first met Mike when I presented to his TU chapter a couple years ago. He expressed an interest then in learning the black arts of the wet fly, and today we finally got around to making it happen. Conditions were far nicer than yesterday, with lower temperatures, lower humidity, and a good breeze out of the north. However, the fishing was still slow, and we again had to work hard for every fish. Hatch activity was virtually nonexistent, and we saw precious few risers. Mike did a great job persevering and never lost faith in the method, even when it wasn’t producing. Well done, Mike! One of my favorite parts of today’s outing was taking Mike to some deep, dark, mysterious holes that I believe are rarely fished. It is truly rewarding to hook a trout on a wet fly in spots like that.

Mike’s first trout on a wet fly came about two hours into our session. Almost every fish we connected with today came in the transition zone between the main current and the softer edges by the riverbank.

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Portrait of a soon-to-be-dangerous wet fly machine hard at work.

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Farmington River 7/18/16: Hot and not

Today was the kind of day where we had to work hard for every trout. I guided Josh and his dad, and they both did a great job persevering under some truly difficult conditions. We started off with an indicator nymphing session, and though we gave it an A+ effort, the results simply weren’t there. Not so with wets, which is where we saw all our action. Wouldn’t you know it? Right when things started to pick up, the weather rolled in, so we had to call the outing. We’ll get ’em next time, guys!

Got him! Josh’s first fish, a Survivor Strain brown taken on a Squirrel and Ginger.

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After the rains, the fog rolled in…

…as did this chunky mid-teens wild brown. Note full adipose, scarred mouth, and healing old wound (raptor?) mid-flank. This buck has seen a little action.

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Farmington River Mini-Report 7/13/16: 1-for-90

I had 90 minutes to fish mid-day today. Sunny, hot, and a gusty south wind, so I figured the terrestrials-blown-into-the-water energy might work in my favor. Fished a three fly team of (from top to point) a drowned hopper, Drowned Ant, and SHBHPT. The venue was a long, snotty run that would be a very manageable wade at 240cfs (59 degrees at 3pm if you’re keeping score at home).

Didn’t I feel like a genius when a fat rainbow jumped on on the second cast. But, it was on the PT. And it was the only fish to net today. So that proves how little I know.

On the other hand, while much of the east coast was working, I was standing in a gorgeous river, fishing.

Maybe I’m not so dumb after all.

Block Island report: Three steps forward, one giant leap back

Block Island used to be the the place I’d go to restore my faith in the ocean. The late spring striper fishing in Connecticut would inevitably fade, and mainland Rhode Island would become a crap shoot. But Block Island would be as reliable as sunrise in the east.

Over the course of a week, I could expect between 60 and 100 bass, with a healthy percentage of legal fish in the mix. Many were the years when my largest striper would be a summer resident of the Block. And while there might be a night of skunking, the Island would always quickly repay me with an off-the-charts outing. (I still fondly recall the night in the mid-two thousand oughts when my friend John and I encountered a school of 15-25 pound bass within casting range. John took a striper on 11 consecutive casts — work that out in your head — and I managed the largest fish of the night with a junior cow that went nearly 40 inches. I don’t think the drags on our reels were ever the same after that.)

Then came 2011. I landed eight stripers over the course of a week. Incredibly, 2012 was worse: four bass over seven nights. 2013 was much better, albeit spotty, 2014 better still and more consistent, and then last year I surpassed the 75 fish mark without a single skunk.

Sadly, the resurgence was short-lived. A paltry ten bass this year, four in one night. (This  indicates a dearth of schools of feeding bass. Instead, you get lone wolves, which means you need to be in the right place at the right time. Certainly some of that is calculable, but much of it is left to the whims of chance.) I had to work my butt off for those stripers, too — a typical night had me bouncing around the island hitting multiple spots. On of my two single-fish nights, my striper came on the last cast. I saw less than a dozen sand eels all week. The family goes to the beach nearly every day, yet I could only find one bass cruising the shore break. Even more telling was the hardcore-wetsuit-plugger who relayed his tale of woe. Fishing on his favorite boulders from the southeast to southwest sides, he managed a single bass over four nights.

My local spies tell me that the beach bite never materialized this year (the second half of June/first half of July is typically prime time), and the boat bite has likewise been poor. The big question is: why? For one, no bait, indicated by a paucity of shore birds scavenging the beach on the receding tides. Some locals are pointing to the wholesale wanton slaughter of larger bass at the Ledge over the last half-decade as a contributing factor. Meanwhile, Cape Cod has been en fuego this year. Could it be that for some reason, large numbers of bass ignored the right turn to the Block and continued on to the cozy confines of Chatham?

One thing is certain. A new normal for fly fishing Block Island from the shore has been established. And it is:  you pays your money and you takes your chances.

Good times on the first night. This fish was part of the only school (if you can call a half dozen bass a school) of actively feeding fish I found all week. What he lacked in size — this is a 24-incher — he made up for in ferocity. My presentation was short strips across a slow current, and he hammered the fly with such power that I put him on the reel. The Big Eelie in various color schemes accounted for all my bass. One constant on Block Island remains: the remarkable clarity of the water. 

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Iron meets water and air. Oxidation ensues. Taken on the northwest side.

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Darkness falls across the land. (And sea.) I took this shot while perched on a rock as the waves rolled in at my feet. I was sure I was going to score a 15-pounder here — there was a nice rip line moving across the current — but I blanked. A bit of a tricky wade as this flat is a weed-covered boulder field, so I was thankful to make it back to shore on the incoming tide.

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I saw you, feeding noisily near that boulder pile. The best striper of the trip, and my only keepah. I had to reposition myself to properly present to this fish. On the second cast, bang! What? I couldn’t believe I missed him. So I ripped my line in to make another cast. In the moment it took to raise the rod tip, slack formed in the line. When I lifted the line off the water, the fish was on. To reiterate: I’d rather be lucky than good.

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Things to do in your Jeep during an electrical storm

I had a brilliant plan for last night’s striper expedition. Really. It would have been perfect. Unfortunately, Mother Nature decided to fire up some major thunder and lightning action just as I pulled into the spot. Not wanting to be a statistic, I cooled my heels in the truck with a Liga Privada No. 9 Double Corona (a cigar of immense depth and power) while the storm raged overhead. I turned on the Mets game, and since they were murdering the Cubs, it made the 90 minutes of prime lost tide slightly more bearable. I decided to amuse myself by trying some artsy no-flash-in-the-dark selfies. Here’s a trippy Jimi Hendrix acid light show rendering of your humble scribe:

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As soon as the storm passed, I raced to the beach where I managed two stripers in the last gasp of the outgoing tide.

A reminder that no fish is worth chasing in an electrical storm. Please get off the water and take cover when you hear thunder.

 

A follow-up to the 6/21 Farmy report

On the way home from the river, I stopped by my friend Sal’s place (Legends, a gorgeous B&B/lodge on the banks of the river — see the icon/link in the right hand column). Sal was fishing Greenwoods (right outside his back door) that evening and reported finding ants in the water. When he tied on an ant pattern, his hookup rate shot skyward.

Don Butler wrote, “ants is good food.” Sal’s experience is a reminder that it’s that time of year. Once we near fall, look for wet/humid days to produce swarms of flying ants, too.

One of my favorite summer wets is the Drowned Ant.

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Farmington River Report 6/21/16: Cane and able

Gadzooks! Can it be June 21st and I have not yet fished the Farmington with my beloved cane pole during my beloved Sulphur hatch? Begone, oh evil scheming time-space continuum! Here are some notes:

Fished the upper TMA. Water was 313cfs, clear, and cold. So cold, that I was shivering. Got to remember the fleece next time.

Hatches: Excellent! Sulphurs (16-18), caddis (18), a few small BWOs (18-20) and the ubiquitous midge. When I arrived at 5:00pm, there were sulphur duns on the water and the trout were enjoying them immensely. I find emerger patterns like the Usual and the Magic Fly to be less effective when the trout are eating duns, and that was the case last night. A classic Catskills-style dry worked nicely. By 7pm, the duns were off the water and the trout were on a second sulphur emergence (splashy rises) and spinners or something smaller (gentle porpoising). Small comparaduns and the Magic Fly size 20 worked for me.

A summer evening, a bent rod, and a My Father Le Bijou 1922 box-pressed torpedo. For one shining hour, all is right with the world.

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My tastes in dry fly water vary, but I think what I enjoy the most is technical water that requires tricky mends. You know the kind — nasty cross-currents and variable speeds, and if you get one good, natural drift out of ten casts, you’re doing well. My first dry fly session of the year usually exposes the rust — from presentation to hook set — and last night was no exception. I stuck six fish that I lost moments after the strike. I had another dozen quality rises to my fly that came up empty. Still, I landed enough browns and rainbows to keep me chuckling.

I still don’t understand why people leave the river at 8pm. As I point out in the current issue of American Angler, the last hour of twilight in the summer is when the fish go nuts — and get reckless. The rise activity was steady and solid from 5pm-8:15pm, but in the next hour it went off the charts. And I had 75 yards of prime water all to myself. I like a size 10-12 Light Cahill Catskills dry during this time.

Once I can no longer see the fly, I use the bucket method (look it up) of strike detection. That is, unless my line suddenly comes tight because a mid-teens wild brown slaughtered the fly and is now swimming upstream with fierce conviction. Note the kype, haloed spots, white edges and full adipose.

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