13: Are you still there?

Aug7

I guided Steven today and we had about the nicest August weather you could hope for: sunny, about 80 degrees, and low humidity. The fishing was pretty fair, too. The river was crystal clear, 324cfs in the Upper TMA, and 64 degrees. Not much in the way of hatch activity, but you take what you get and make soup.

Steven had missed my most recent “Wet Flies 101” class at UpCountry Sportfishing, so we spent the day covering the curriculum. He did an outstanding job. Funny thing: the first run we fished, there was a guy swinging wets. We watched him hook and land a nice trout. Turns out it was Ted, who took my class in May this year.

After Ted left, we waded in and took several fish, including this lovely wild brown that was rising on the edge of a shade line in less than two feet of water:

Next, we headed off to the lower river. Slimmer pickings, with only one juvenile salmon to show. We finished the day in the upper TMA. We fished several very sexy seams and pockets with no love, but then things picked up in the last hour.

“Are you still there?” When my students are fishing wets on the dangle and they feel a strike, I tell them to ask that question before they set the hook. (When swinging flies for Atlantic salmon in the UK, you say, “God save the Queen.”) One of the biggest challenges for a new wet fly fisher is not setting the hook when they feel the tug. It’s a highly challenging reflex to overcome, and failing to do so usually means pulling the hook out of the fish’s mouth. Steven was struggling with it as much as anyone does early on, but by the end of the day, he was proudly announcing, “I waited that time!”

And every time he did, the trout was still there.

7/31/13 Farmington River Report: “So a guy who can’t hear and a guy who can’t talk walk into a river…”

Aug1

As Woody Allen said, sometimes 80% of success is just showing up. Pete had gone downstream, and I went to the head of the run. It was a-quarter-to-noon, but the bank was already in the shade. First cast, BANG! The wet flies had barely settled into the water. I saw the splashy rise and felt the weight of the fish. A bantamweight wild brown had delivered a roundhouse right to the top dropper, a Squirrel and Ginger.

A feisty pug of a wild Farmington brown. This fish had an almost perch-like shape, with a tubby midsection that tapered dramatically before the tail.

I took two more wild browns on the way down to where Pete was fishing. He was also doing well with a combination of wet flies and nymphs. (I was dedicated to the wet fly cause all afternoon.)

What pair we made. I’m partially deaf in one ear. Pete had his vocal chords compromised by recent surgery and can only speak in a whisper. After my tenth, “What?!?” we decided on a policy of sign language and close-quarters conversation.

After our fast start, though, things slowed. Dramatically. We walked well over a half mile of prime water in the upper TMA with only one dropped fish to show for it. “What?!?” indeed. Very little hatch activity, and the water was running clear and cold.

Pete left around 2:30, so I took a flyer on a spot I hadn’t fished since May. I started off in some snotty water above it and was rewarded with a nice little brown and a few juvenile salmon. Then, in the run proper, I took a beautiful holdover brown on a mended swing. The water was clear enough to see the whole transaction, from the flash of gold as the trout darted out from behind a rock, to its striper-like thrashing on the surface at hook set. Another (dis)satisfied customer on the Squirrel and Ginger (this fly has become an automatic as my top dropper). I took two more smaller fish, then called it a day. A damn fine day. Thanks, July. Ya done good.

This could be a wild fish, but whether it’s stream-born or not, it had large pectoral fins that it used to repeatedly glide into deeper parts of the run.

Thanks to today’s Wet Flies 101 Class/Farmington River Report

Jul27

Many thanks to John and Matt who attended today’s Wet Flies 101 class. We were blessed with outstanding weather, and the river was in terrific condition: clear, 64 degrees in the upper TMA, and running at just under 400cfs. Although bugs were few and far between, we did find a bunch of fish that were willing to jump on. It’s exciting to witness someone landing their first trout on a wet fly. Well done, gentlemen.

A wild brookie that fell to the charms of a Light Cahill winged wet. Been catching more of these gems this year than in recent memory.

Friday, I fished the river with friend Jon from 4pm-9pm. We found trout everywhere, first on wets, then on wets and dries. Jon took an assortment of browns and an exquisitely parr-marked wild brookie. He also put on a wet fly clinic, catching two fish in a pod of rising trout in just a few minutes. I, on the other hand, chose to be tortured by trout feeding on emerging Summer Stenos (this hatch has yet to pick up any steam where I’ve been fishing). I spent over an hour stubbornly trying to catch this one fish that was holding hard up against an obstruction — not to mention the triple black diamond current seams I had to mend across. I’d say maybe one in six presentations was good. You can probably still hear the echoes of my hoot when he finally took.

I ODed on the Farmington this week, five days on the water. What a way to go.

This may look like a big honking stonefly, but it’s actually a cleverly disguised top-secret NSA drone. (Joke courtesy of Matt.)

Tip of the Week: Whitewater

Jul25

You know all those snotty, pocketed riffles on the Farmington that were impossible for you to fish during the rains and high flows of June and early July? Well, no one else could fish them either. But now you can. And they’re loaded with trout that haven’t seen an artificial fly in weeks. I know, because I waded one of those runs today.

In just two hours, idly swinging and dangling wets, I caught over a dozen fish. I fished four flies — a deer hair head/wing soft-hackle, a BH Squirrel and Ginger, a March Brown soft-hackle, and the Drowned Ant — and caught trout on all of them.

Regardless of June rains, this time of year is a good time to focus on riffly water. As water temps rise, trout move into these oxygen factories. You’d be surprised at how big some of the fish are, even though the water’s not even knee high. Wet fly, nymphing, even bushy dries like a Stimulator will all take fish.

Here are some of today’s customers.

Several smaller wild browns like this one. They fight like tigers.

All the really cool stoneflies hang out on this rock to smoke cigarettes and shed their exoskeletons.

The last fish of the day, taken on a size 12 March Brown soft-hackle.

On the Drowned Ant, size 14. This one had some shoulders, and really clobbered the fly.

6/1/13 Farmington River report: Catch-and-release works.

Jun2

Fished the Lower TMA last evening from 6pm-8pm. I haven’t fished the lower river at close to a 1,000cfs in a while, and I was curious to see how some of my favorite spots fared in the higher water.

It was still crazy humid, but the water was warm enough (67 degrees within a foot of the surface –don’t worry, it’s colder along the bottom) to defeat any notion of those classic Farmington River fog banks. Visibility was good, although there was still a light stain. My plan was to fish wets with an emphasis on Light Cahills (three fly rig from top dropper to point: Squirrel & Ginger, Partridge and Cahill, Light Cahill winged wet), but the hatch never materialized. I only saw two lonely creamy duns, a few stray caddis, and the omnipresent swarming midges. That last crew made me happy I had a cigar.

Catch-and-release works. Some sporting bird of prey tried to drill a hole in Mr. Brown’s head, then had the decency to let him go.

Fished a long deep run for about 45 minutes, waiting for a hatch that never happened. So I hiked upstream about 500 yards, and fished a series of rapids, walking, wading, and swinging the flies close to shore. Took the bird-wounded brown above in that maelstrom, along with a JV Atlantic Salmon.

Finished up in a deep pocketed run where I took a leaping brown on my second cast. Signs of good things to come? Sadly, not. One more courtesy tap, and that was it.

Farmington holdover browns on wet flies

May15

Spent a few hours today doing some advance scouting for Saturday’s wet fly class. Found fish everywhere I went. Gloriously alone today, but that won’t be the case on Saturday. Water was a crisp 50 degrees, skies overcast, and a few showers here and there. We need more rain than this.

Not a lot going on bug or rising fish-wise, but I did see some light tan caddis, about a size 16, a few lonely Paralepts, and mounds of miniscule midges. I was fishing a Squirrel and Ginger as the top dropper, Leisenring’s classic Iron Blue Dun in the middle, and a black bead head grey soft-hackle nymph on point. The trout were split right down the middle, half of them on the Squirrel and Ginger, half on the point fly. They took the fly with gusto. Powerful, demonstrative hits.

A lovely Farmington River holdover brown that took the top dropper, a Squirrel and Ginger, on the dead drift.

Two trout of note. The first came where a riffle dumps into a long, deep pool. I was being lazy, mindlessly fishing wets downstream, when I looked above me and saw this pocket that I’d swung flies through a thousand times before. I made an upstream cast to it, letting the flies dead drift, when I saw a trout flash at an emerger just below the surface. Just as my brain was forming the thought, “Must cast there again,” I realized the emerger was my Squirrel and Ginger. It was a handsome holdover brown, metallic and buttery.

A little farther upstream, there’s a sapling that hangs over the river like a drunk caught in mid-stagger. Its branches drag in the current, and the shade from its leaves clouds the already mysterious waters beneath it. It’s one of those spots where there’s always a fish. But not today. Well, not on the upstream side. Just below, whack! This brown did her finest impersonation of a steelhead, cartwheeling out of the water multiple times. I could see it wasn’t a big trout, but I almost put her on the reel. Up and down the pool she went. Foul hooked, I wondered? Nope. Just a fat, obstreperous holdover brown, about 14″, with the Squirrel and Ginger lodged neatly in the corner of her mouth.

For a moment, I considered putting her on the reel. She had some shoulders, this one.