Category Archives: General Ramblings

It’s a Fun One (Thousand Followers Celebration)!

Happy Monday, fellow Currentseamsers. We hit it some time ago, and now it’s time to celebrate currentseams.com reaching the rarefied 1,000 followers mark! Suffice to say I couldn’t have done it without you, so thank you for being part of the Fun One Thousand. As usual, we’re doing a flies-tied-by-Steve giveaway. Here are the rules:

1) No purchase necessary.

2) You must be a follower of currentseams to enter. (If you’re not one already, you become a follower by clicking on the Sign Me Up button below the “Follow Blog via Email” header, at the top right if you’re on a laptop, and at the bottom of the scroll on a mobile device.

This is a photo, not a link.

3) To enter, leave a comment on this thread that responds to at least one of these questions: What’s your favorite fly pattern(s) for the Farmington River? What’s your favorite section of the Farmington, and how do you like to fish it? If you don’t fish the Farmington, where do you like to fish and what’s your favorite fly pattern(s)? One entry per person. Deadline for entering is 11:59pm September 30, 2023. Three winners will be chosen at random. The winners will be notified in the comments section of this thread or by email, and will be responsible for sending me their address so I can ship the flies out. Sorry, I can only ship to U.S. addresses.

4) All decisions by me are final.

Thanks again for reading and following currentseams.

Stuff like this could be in your hot little hands if you enter.

Farmington River Report and other items of variable interest you should definitely read

I’m in a goofy mood, hence the goofy title. Welcome back! I hope a splendid holiday weekend was had by all.

There is no joy in Mudville — and not just because I’m a Mets fan. There’s certainly no joy in Riverton. As I write this at 12:20pm, even if you were fishing above Riverton, you’d be fishing in water that is at a dangerous temperature for trout. It’s already north of 70 degrees(!). The MDC has decided to help (he said sarcastically) by cutting the flow a bit. With this week’s heat wave, the hits just keep on coming. Fear not: the hardiest specimens will find a way to survive, and the stocking truck shall return, as will New England fall nights in the 40s.

Things are heating up in the Culton kitchen, too. These are Trinidad Scorpions. Their heat is measured in the millions of Scoville Units (a jalapeño is 5k-8k).

Note: once safe fishing does resume, the entire river from the base of the dam to the steel bridge in Unionville is catch & release only until 6am second Saturday in April. If you have not done so, please program in the DEEP TIP line into your phone so you can report poachers: 800-424-4357.

I’m kicking off my speaking season tonight in Long Island with my good friends the Long Island Fly Rodders. I’ve been presenting to them for years, and I’m looking forward to seeing everyone. If you’re in charge of speakers for your club, now’s the time to book as my calendar is filling up.

Finally, I was on the Cape this weekend and managed to get out on the Brewster flats for one morning. I’ll tell you about that later this week. If you salt, that might be your best diversion while you wait for the Farmington to drop.

What you’re missing on Instagram and other loose ends

If you don’t follow me on Instagram — @stevecultonflyfishing — you’re missing out on some good stuff. For example, this week I posted a video of how build a non-Euro rig for a mini jigged streamer. I keep the content unique and separate on Instagram and currentseams — so if it’s on here, it’s not on there, and vice versa. Certainly Instagram is a more visual, quick-hit form of social media, but if you’re looking to keep up with what I’m doing through video or photos, head over and start following me.

Get the full story on Instagram.

Speaking of followers, I owe you a 1,000 currentseams followers fly giveaway contest. Look for that sometime in September. Holy smokes! At 1,026, I’m only 74 away from 1,100…

These cooler nights and shorter days with a lower sun angle (and especially the ones that are coming) are going to go a long way towards cooling things down. Here’s to some great September fishing!

Farmington River Report 8/14/23: In which we remain in a holding pattern.

I wish I had better news for you, but the Farmington River continues to flow within the risky margins of trout-friendly/trout dangerous temperatures. It’s a tantalizing balancing act; at 70 or 72 degrees, brown trout are probably OK, and not in any real danger. Unless you hook them and subject them to stress — stress that may ultimately kill them. Here’s some up-to-date information from Torrey Collins, the shop manager at UpCountry Sprotfishing:

“Water temps remain marginal with water coming out of the dam at about 66 degrees all day long, and then warming up during the day and as you move downstream. Coolest water temps and the longest fishable window is early to mid mornings. Look for water temps 68 degrees and below, and DO NOT fish in 70 degree plus water or you will stress the trout out and can potentially kill them by catching and releasing at 70+ degrees (not enough oxygen in warmer water). If you are fishing in Church Pool in the afternoons, you are 100% fishing in 70+ degree water. Don’t be that guy. If you have a thermometer, please use it- it will show you where & when you can and cannot fish. Pretty much on sunny days by about 10am you better be up in Riverton above the Still River (it’s a warming influence that dumps in warm to hot water in the summer), and you may need to move even closer to the dam release to stay in cool enough water. When water temps move into the mid 60’s, many trout will hold in the faster water due to the higher oxygen content.Rain in the forecast for tonight & tomorrow will raise the Still River, which means that from there down the river will be even warmer, so be careful and take water temps. FYI when you take the water temp, make sure you are in the current and your thermometer is shaded, otherwise it will give you a reading higher than the actual temp.”

Very not good. Ixnay on the ishingfay.

I’m continuing to place my Farmington River guide trips on hold until temperatures moderate.  We’re getting rain tonight and the MDC is lowering the flow. What we really need are cooler days and some early fall chilly nights!

TBT on Wednesday: Kenney Casting

I recently came across this wonderful photo of Ken Abrames taken by fly fishing shooters extraordinaire Barry and Cathy Beck. It was posted by Tom Keer on one of his social media feeds. I don’t know where the shot was taken, but it’s a great look at an extraordinary fly caster. I remember seeing Ken in a parking lot in Watch Hill with my Salmo Sax #3 and a Rio Outbound long head 9-weight line. He held the rod in his right hand; his left hand was stuffed into the front pocket of his khakis. One false cast…waaay back….then one smooth, yet powerful stroke forward, and out went the entire length of line. (That’s 100 feet for those of you keeping score at home.) There are those who will tell you that the double haul — or as Ken liked to call it, “high line speed gymnastics” — is essential to being able to fly fish in saltwater. They never saw Ken cast. I’ve still never double hauled in my life — thanks to Ken.

Photo courtesy of Tom Keer and taken by Barry and Cathy Beck.

Farmington River update: flows and land and maybe some non-sucky news for a change

Happy Monday. This morning, Hogback dam is still pumping out nearly 1.2K. According to Torrey Collins, 50cfs is coming from the bottom and the bulk from the over-the-top-spillway. The upshot is a lot of water leaving the reservoir, and not much of it cold. If you choose to fish, please be vigilant about water temperature — and of course, be careful!

As far as the flows getting back to normal: this water dump will continue until the reservoir reaches a level deemed safe by the Army Corps of Engineers. Meanwhile, the CT DPH has ruled that the MDC can be released from their drinking water obligation. This is encouraging as it means the MDC gets their way, and should no longer have a reason to be a dick about releasing a minimal amount of water. But “should” doesn’t mean “can,” or even “will.” Once the ACE determines the reservoir as at a proper level, we’ll see what the MDC does with the bottom release flows. For now, I like that the MDC is releasing only a minimal amount from the bottom, as this will help with restratification. Stay tuned on this one.

So, how about some confirmed good news? The MDC has agreed to a conservation easement that will assure 5,500 acres of land around the watershed will remain undeveloped. You can read more about that here and here.

Up next: the Block Island report.

Let’s try to keep it that way!

Back from Block, water woes, and a lost season

I feel like my current fishing world can be best summed up by Ray Davies, who wrote, “The news was so bad that I fell out of bed.”

The fishing on Block was soul-crushingly bad. This is the third straight down year, and I felt lucky to have landed five stripers in seven nights. (Yes, you read that correctly.) Four skunks in the mix. (Really?) My biggest fish was 22″, bringing my streak of not landing a keeper or better to three years. How far that shore fishery has fallen!

Back on the home front, Mother Nature and the MDC are wreaking havoc upon the Farmington River. A couple days from now is my traditional date to go fish the dorothea at a favorite mark, but that’s obviously not going to happen. To add insult to injury, I’ve had to cancel both wet fly lessons scheduled for this week.

Normally, I’d console myself by heading to the Housatonic, but that river is also experiencing catastrophic water levels. No smallmouth for you! And no smallmouth for me, either. The white fly hatch will come and go, and none of us will be able to enjoy fishing it. Maybe the Hous will come down to a dry/wet fly fishable level in 2-3 weeks. That’s assuming we don’t get pounded by rain…again. This is now four consecutive alternating years of flood, then drought. It’s the new normal, and it sucks for all of us. What’s worse, it can’t be good for the ecosystem. Would a happy medium be too much to ask? Perhaps the silver lining will be more trout holding over to this fall. We shall see.

Bloody hell! 5,500cfs is a long way from being even remotely fishable.

Finally, good reader, I must apologize for all this doom and gloom. I try to be a positive force, but I also feel compelled to tell it like it is. I suppose I could use this time to prep my fall striper box, or my winter nymph box, or even get a head start on some steelhead flies. Maybe some bluegills down at the pond on Elk Hair Caddis and a six-foot glass rod would cheer me up? Now there’s a thought…

Farmington River Flow Update: And then, there was water

No, you’re not seeing things. Yes, there is water again in the PTMA and even in Unionville. Last Monday, the upper Farmington River, its reservoirs, and watershed in southern MA got deluged, with some areas receiving inches of rain. Now that the Colebrook Reservoir is at 100% capacity, the Army Corps of Engineers has instructed the MDC to dump water and reduce the level. That’s why the gauge looks like this:

While this is better than the paltry 60cfs MDC was releasing, it’s a perfect illustration of how poorly this resource is managed. Instead of dumping 340 extra cfs of water en masse, why couldn’t the flows have been set to 150cfs for weeks? Better yet, how about the historical median flow? You know what’s going to happen next: the flows will go back to a trickle, and we’ll have the Farmington Rock Garden River. Again. There is no word on when those flows will be cut, but it is surely coming. So get out and enjoy the water while you can.

I’m still waiting to get you some better information on how this will all shake out, and what can be done about it. There are forces at work for better stewardship of the river. Stay tuned.

Creating, developing, and testing a new fly

Last week I mentioned that I was testing a “new” Isonychia wet fly. (I placed the word in parentheses, because so much of modern fly tying is derivative, riffing off countless other patterns that came before. Not that that’s a bad thing! Rock ‘n’ rollers and jazz hepcats have been doing the same for decades.) Of course, I didn’t expect that mention to go unnoticed; in fact, I received multiple requests for more details.

But to quote Don Vito Corleone, my answer is no…and I will give you my reasons.

For me, a new fly pattern is a multi-faceted process. I start with the creative spark, and determining the need for a new pattern. That need can be as simple as, “I want my own fly,” or that I just don’t like what others have done before me. Then, I go the vise and build prototypes. Next comes testing. I may refine the fly and make small or large changes, depending on the pattern. The most important part is the conclusion. Does this fly work? Do I enjoy fishing it? And most of all, do the fish eat it?

All of this can take weeks, and usually months or years.

So, my apologies. No new Isonychia pattern for you…yet. I can share with you that so far it looks like a winner. Once it gets the seal of approval, you’ll all be the first to know. Not to drive anyone further bonkers, but I’ve also got a LaFontaine-inspired version of the Squirrel and Ginger in the works, and the early results are also very favorable. Plus that Henry’s Fork cripple (not a new pattern, and not mine, but worthy of inclusion in your box). It’s a crazy few weeks so I beg your pardon and ask for patience. Remember the sage words of Hannibal to Clarice…

Currentseams Now Has Over 1,000 Subscribers!

Currentseams now has over 1,000 official subscribers — and it’s all your fault. Really, I can’t thank all of you enough for your interest, your readership, your passion, your enthusiasm, your comments, and especially for your kind, giving nature. I like very much what this site has become, and that’s in a large part due to your participation. Yeah, I wish I had more tying videos. Yeah, I wish I had more essays and articles. Yeah, I need to update some stuff (like my wet fly team diagram). But that’s something to aspire to.

Of course, we’ll have a drawing to celebrate. But not right now. Summer is upon us, and we’ve all got cookouts to attend, vacations to go on, and fish to catch. My plan is for something later in summer. Of course, as a subscriber you’ll see it first here. In the meantime, if you’re not a subscriber — ten lashed with a cane rod — now’s a great time to sign up. Be sure to follow me on Instagram @stevecultonflyfishing, too. Again, thank you, thank you, thank you!

It’s as easy as that. (Sorry, this isn’t a live link. The real one is off to the side or the top or the bottom, depending on your device.) Who’s going to be 1,012?