Category Archives: Fishing Reports

Farmington River Report 5/4/15: In we go

Today was a rather nice day to fall into the river. A missed step. The current pushes you in directions you wish it wouldn’t. Balance is nearly recovered, then lost. Set on your ass, you feel that first shocking trickle that says the top of your waders have been breached. Standing up only makes it worse, because what was up now rushes down, and if you’ve worn old-school cotton/poly sweatpants instead of straight synthetics, the fabric acts like a giant cold water-eating sponge. Yes. From your waist down to your toes. And in front with the junk.

And that’s how I found myself kneeling on the banks of the Farmington River with my waders bunched around my ankles, backside pointing toward the heavens, hoping the the sun and the wind could do their thing right quick.

But, enough of my bathing habits. You will want to know about the fishing.

Aware of the sure thing that is the recently stocked upper TMA had me in a contrary, adventurous mood. Let’s see what parts elsewhere bring. Spot A was a bust. Nymphed. Not a touch. But I’ve never done well there, so perhaps disappointment is my lot. Plenty of bugs out. And a few Hendricksons at 11:30am.

Spot B was where I went for a swim. It’s also where I caught three trout on wet flies, all bruiser rainbows who declared in no uncertain terms that my intentions of landing them would be met with fierce combat. The genetic trait that compels them to leap is a marvel of nature. Steelhead in Connecticut, albeit on a miniature scale.

We could always call them “pearlescent trout.”

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Spot C was a bust, despite a solid Hendrickson hatch. No trout on all those mayflies? Really? Yes, so it would seem. Hard to believe. But I know when I’m beaten, so off I went to greener pastures.

Spot D. Many more of those H-bombs. Clusters of them blowing in the wind. And a few slashing risers that…I could not catch. I think that’s a first for me on this river (swinging wets over trout feeding on Hendricksons and not even getting a courtesy swipe). Finally, some love from a rather large juvenile Atlantic salmon.

I wish I could say I know for sure why there was so little activity on so many bugs. But I can’t. Good thing, though, because that means I need to perform some more intensive research. And soon.

It felt good to be fishing on the warmest day of the year. Even the wild flowers were glowing.

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The weirdness that is this year’s striper spring continues

I remember that Saturday afternoon like it was yesterday. About nine years ago. Bright sunshine, the middle of the afternoon, and we took striper after after striper on the fly. I can still see the gentleman who was fishing above me, how he so gracefully yet purposefully stripped in each bass he’d hooked. He’d recast, strip, and then he was on again. The only reason I left that day was because I promised my wife I’d be home in a few hours to spell her (we had two very young kids at the time). My friends who stuck out  the tide each had a triple-digit day.

Well, that was then. This is now. Same spot. Same tide. Roughly the same kind of day. And I felt fortunate to get three dinks in the last hour of the tide. (These were river fish, as evidenced by their darker above-the-lateral line coloration.)

I’m fine that I haven’t yet experienced the Bass-O-Matic this year. Really, I am. It’s fascinating how every year is different. I know I’m going to have one of those world-of-hurt striper thumbs sooner or later.

So whoever is in charge of these things, if you’d like to make it sooner, I’d be totally cool with that. Or a thirty-pounder. Or a kick ass summer on Block Island. Whatever you think is best.

In the meantime, I’m going trout fishing.

When nature calls, a clamshell makes a fine ash ray for your Aging Room Quattro F55.

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Farmington River Mini-Report 4/29/14: The C Word

Everyone wants to know, “When will the Hendricksons be here?” It’s a fair question, but there’s another hatch that happens around now that doesn’t get much juice: tan caddis. I love fishing under that hatch, and today’s glorious weather made it even more enjoyable. The caddis were out in good numbers (as were anglers), with a fair amount of trout feeding on them (the caddis, not the anglers). I fished the upper and lower TMAs and by far my best action was in the upper. Part of this was due to some recently stocked fish; the caddis hatch also worked in my favor. Not much going in in the way of hatch activity for points south. Most of the trout I caught today were recent wards of the state, but I did get one wild brown and a fat 17″ holdover hen, with a head that was dwarfed by her prodigious girth. Wow, did she ever clobber my Squirrel and Ginger on the dangle. That was par for the course today: the stockees were all nip, nip, nip, and the old hands were take-no-prisoners-I’m-gonna-murder-that-fly. Water was at a good height in the upper TMA (433 cfs), and clear (sorry, no temperature, but it felt bracingly cold).

I want to go back. Now.

This 17″ chubbette picked out the Squirrel and Ginger from a team of three different wet flies.

Fat Farmy Hen 4:15

Curl up baby. Curl up tight.

Back to the night shift. Dozing on the couch at 10:45, taking care to not really fall asleep because the bus is leaving at 11:30. On the road, JR Cuban Alternate Cohiba Esplendido ceremoniously lit at the appropriate landmark. Now past midnight, and it’s raining. Maybe it will keep the yahoos away. Only a few cars in the lot. That’s good. The weather people said showers, but this is more like a fine mist. Three other guys out fishing, more than I expected, but better than Monday’s daytime lineup. There are fish around — the spin guy to my left just hooked up. Now it’s really raining. I didn’t order this wetness. Everyone is leaving, and I’m all by myself. Thirty minutes in. The rain stops. A few stars try to wink through the parting clouds. There it is, a sharp pull at the end of the greased line swing. My first keeper of the year? No way. It feels like a short. And it is. Not why I came out tonight, but the stink is off. Working the stretch of water down, then backing up the pool, even though there is no true pool to be backed up. Over an hour of meditative casting, mending, swinging, repeating. Alone. Magnificently alone. Let’s try up there. I haven’t caught a striper up there in a long time. The answer is no. Until the answer is yes. A better fish, struck on the second mend, but still a short. I can see Scorpio and the Summer Triangle and it makes me dream of being out alone on Block Island in July. There’ll be some keepers there for sure. There probably are a few here, but not for me or my Crazy Menhaden. Perhaps when next I return. Big girls. Ready to eat.

Undercover of the night.

That’s AM, people. Very AM.

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2015: A Striper Oddity

I never thought I’d be so excited about catching four school bass. But after this crazy spring, yowzah, woo-hoo, awwwright, yessiree Bob, good golly Miss Molly, I am all fired up.

Ahem.

Now that cooler heads have prevailed, I want to tell you about my funny faux pas today at Ye Olde Striper Spot. The wind was gusting out of the NNW, 10-20 easy, and the cloud structure was breathtaking. When I waded in, I was the fifth guy at the end of the line. We were all pretty evenly (and courteously) spaced. After an hour or so, our ranks had swollen to nearly ten. Some people were catching, others were not.  I turned to look behind me and I noticed that the angler above me had closed the gap to about 30 feet. He hailed me. “Do you mind if I ask you something?” I thought I was going to get a question about the two hander, or the floating line, or what color fly I was using. No. “Can you stand back a bit? You’ve moved quite a ways toward me.”

Well, to clean up Jack Nicholson’s line from “A Few Good Men,” didn’t I feel like a freakin’ butt hole.

Sincere apologies were offered, as was a fly. I appreciated his politeness and understanding. We talked about fishing for a few minutes. Then, fences mended, we returned to our precious avocation on this strange grey-green-blue windy day.

Monday’s implements of destruction, drying for the next session. Water temp was 50 degrees.

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Skunk cabbage, brookies, and…snow?

Just when you you thought it was OK to go outside without a jacket, Mother Nature throws a day like today at you. Well, I had my heavy fleece on when I stepped into the woods and headed toward yon brook trout stream. But snow? Geez, I knew it was cold (41 degree air temp at 9:30am). I guess I was emotionally unprepared for frozen water to be falling from the sky.

The stream was up, running clear, and warmer than the air. No hatch activity save for one lonely caddis witnessed on the hike out. I don’t know what to make of this stream. In two hours, I pricked ten, landed one. I fished dry upstream and wet downstream. The significance of that is that I drew only two strikes subsurface. I would have expected more action below.

This leads me to several possible conclusions:

1) This stream is continuing the downward trend it has exhibited over the last few years.

2) That cold front last night sucked the life out of the bite.

3) I have absolutely no idea what’s going on.

I can say with certainty that are are far worse ways to spend a morning than wandering along a thin blue line with a fly rod in your hand.

Amidst the dreary browns and greys of winter, wondrous chlorophyl makes a statement.

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Holding the first native of the year in your hands — then releasing her — is always a special occasion. She took the dry, a size 16 Improved Sofa Pillow.

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And on the 500th cast, a striped bass

It’s been a pretty weird spring for those of us who chase striped bass from the shore on the fly. Ye Olde Striper Shoppe, usually overflowing with eager school bass this time of year, continues to fail to produce. You’ve heard me say it before — every year is different — and as Joe Jackson might say, “so there goes your proof.”

I almost didn’t go yesterday because I simply wasn’t feeling it. But I talked myself into it. Not too hard a sell, since it’s got to turn on sometime, right? In the interest of avoiding crowds and trying something different, I went to a place that had no right to be holding stripers. It wasn’t. But I got my money’s worth of casting practice. Oh. And there was that rip. That paramour-sexy rip with its erotically dancing, undulating surface that made brazen overtures to my weaknesses for such water. Mark my words, there’ll be a bass or ten in it sometime soon.

I forgot my good camera. Usually that means a big striper. But you’ll have to settle for this water, weed and sand sculpture.

April sand bar

Switched from the full sink to the floater for a second piece of water. Nearly two more hours of casting practice. It was rejuvenating to perform a proper greased line swing again. (The poetic majesty of the greased line swing cannot be under-estimated.) But, time on this session had run out. Three more casts. And on the third, as the seven-inch long Crazy Menhaden flatwing swung down and across, a firm take worthy of the year’s first striper. A standard-issue school bass, under twenty inches, still wearing the colors of estuary in winter. But for today, a perfect fish.

I gotta tie some more of these. And some Rock Island flatwings, too.

Crazy CU

No Fish Today

Every year is different, and this (April 16) is the latest I’ve ever gone into a year without catching a striper since I started fishing for them. The only question now is: when?

I thought the fly looked tasty enough. But you can’t catch what isn’t there. Not to worry. Instant expertdom is right around the corner.

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Striper Report 4/3/15: Fifty Shades of Skunk

If you read your Bible, or if you’ve been paying attention in church over the years, you know that St. Peter had two jobs. I don’t know how good a fisherman he was, but I like that he fished for a living. I’ve gotten it into my head that given Peter’s involvement in the crucifixion, Good Friday is an appropriate day to honor him by going fishing. Striper fishing, specifically. So I’ve been doing that for years now.

With our prolonged winter and spring’s current refusal to make a proper stand on the issue of warm and sunny, I figured it would be a little early to find linesiders at Ye Olde Striper Spot. But you don’t know if you don’t go. Besides, I could shake off the big rod casting rust. And there was that EP Carrillo Golossos I had been saving.

Rain and wind, followed by mist and fog and utter calm. You could probably count fifty shades of grey here, but the only spanking was handed out by the bass. 50 Shades of Grey

The water was loaded with organic flotsam: leaves and sticks and bark and reeds. I was surprised to see 42 degrees on my thermometer. No bass that I could find, nor any reported by the three other anglers who had the good sense to leave ninety minutes before I did. But I was glad that they left, because I got to fish in this gorgeous greyness all by myself. Well, just me and St. Peter.

Yes, it was wet out there. I love Ken Abrames’ RLS Easterly color scheme (grey, silver, peacock, and a touch of fluorescent yellow) on days like this. A little color goes a long way. The fly is a sparse, soft-hackled flatwing.  Rod-Fly-Grey

Farmington River Mini Report 4/1/15: Still snow, still slow

I had to get out to the river this morning to shoot some video for an upcoming presentation. There’s not nearly as much snow as there was a few weeks ago, but it is still fairly substantial north of Pleasant Valley. Some of the parking lot/dirt road entrances remain impassable. Water was running about 400cfs, clear, and 39 degrees in the upper TMA. Very little hatch activity. Very little angler activity, although our good friends at UpCountry looked to be doing a booming business. I didn’t do much fishing, but I managed to toss some streamers into three different spots for a few minutes. Nothing. So goes it. Here’s to a warming trend and mayflies with three tails. Soon, please.

And that’s it in a nutshell. Whittemore Abutments Sign