The flows have come down on the West Branch (about 325cfs from the dam and about 450cfs in the PTMA). But all’s not well. As predicted, the ridiculous volume released by the MDC burned through the colder stores at the bottom of the reservoir, and those won’t be replaced for months. Right now, the dam release is about 64 degrees, which is barely trout friendly. The problem is, the farther you go downstream, and the warmer the air temp and the more intense the sunshine, the warmer the water gets.
This is from Torrey Collins on this morning’s UpCountry Sportfishing river report: “(water temperature) rises varying amounts depending upon the day, time of day, and distance from the dam (it reached a peak of 67 degrees in Riverton in the late afternoon yesterday). With a much cooler forecast this week and cooler nights, I’d say you can safely fish downriver as far as New Hartford in the mornings, but by noonish I’d be up at People’s Forest/Mathie’s Grove/Campground & upstream in Riverton where the water temps will be a little cooler as the day progresses and water temps rise a bit. Bring a thermometer with you and actually use it.”
So if you choose to fish for trout on the Farmington, please consult this infographic from ColoradoTU.org:
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.
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…
If you woke up this morning and checked the Riverton gauge, you were greeted to the incredible sight of 1070cfs (now 1240cfs). This, of course, is due to the MDC, under the direction of the Army Corps of Engineers, needing to bleed water from an overfilled reservoir. We’ve been pounded with excessive rain in the last week, which is a good thing. Or is it?
It’s tricky. On the lemonade side, we have water volume just at the right time. 68cfs and an oppressive heat wave do not make a good mix for the survival of trout. From that perspective, this is a good thing. On the lemon side, we have an unusually high water dump that cannot be sustained. Those of us familiar with the total disregard the water gatekeepers have for the natural resource can easily imagine a sudden, catastrophic drop in water levels that will no doubt do damage to trout and invertebrates. The question must be asked: Could you not have released a steady 250cfs, the average release, for the entire month of June, with your already near-full reservoir, thereby avoiding this wasteful dump? (We’ll get to that answer in a moment.)
One thing is certain: a sustained 1K+ water dump is going to hemorrhage irreplaceable stores of cold water. In just one week, we’ve gained 5 degrees of released water temperature:
That sub-50 degree water isn’t coming back until we get some very cool fall nights. The reservoir simply cannot re-stratify in the heat of summer. It’s happened in recent years: the flow from the dam is robust, but it’s coming out at temperatures that are close or at the stressful threshhold for trout.
Never was this resource so ridiculously managed, and it’s all because of money. In what has to be one of the most absurd contracts in the history of water management, the MDC actually saves money by ignoring requests from downstream stakeholders for increased flow. At a recent meeting, the MDC head stated that they currently have no mechanism for releasing more water than the legal minimum or what the Army Corps orders for flood control. That’s not entirely true. They can release water called for for power generation downstream — and pay a fee of $1 million to do so — or ignore such requests and pay a fee of $250K. So MDC has decided to keep their $750K and screw everyone else who uses the river for recreation, screw the wildlife, and screw those of us who depend on the river for income.
To that last point: I should be on my way to the river right now to give a wet fly lesson, but I’m not. I had to cancel. So, I’m out a guide fee today. It’s not that big a deal to me. Because unlike the MDC, I’m not completely beholden to profit.
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.
I was both humbled and honored to have the opportunity to guide three groups from Project Healing Waters. Over the course of two days, we fished, learned, talked, and just plain enjoyed being out on the water. On Tuesday afternoon, I did a streamside classroom for everybody, Wet Flies 101. OK, to be technical, it was at a picnic table at their campsite, but you could hear the river, so that counts for something.
This was the day after those torrential rains, so I gave the first group the option of streamers below the Still River or wet flies above Riverton. Option B was the choice, and off we went. That section was, not surprisingly, loaded with anglers. (Many thanks to those who shared the water both days and were so giving once they learned who we were and what we were doing. True, small kindness is vastly underrated.) The water was bracingly cold, and we had between 70-80cfs of flow to work with — not great, but doable. We found a few fish willing to jump on, but as I heard from the guys multiple times, it really isn’t about putting fish in the hoop. And in this case, they’re mighty right.
Not a bad day at the office! Time flies when you’re having fun, and on both days I frequently lost track of time.
For Wednesday AM, we stuck close to home, fishing water adjacent to the campground. The river had come down a bit, and cleared some, but we still had the challenge of mid-day summer fishing. Nonetheless, by covering water as best we could, we found a few feeding fish. The warmth of the sun on our shoulders and the cool of the river at our feet reminded us that were in a really good place. I had the group fishing a two-fly wet fly team, a fine compromise when not everyone is a great caster. Hatch activity on both days was minimal, and with the recent down and then up flows, I’m sure the insects were as discombobulated as we were.
We finished up Wednesday above the Still River in some gorgeous dry fly water. So, naturally, I suggested we fish dries. I rigged everyone up with a long leader system — minimum 13 feet — and we had at it. What a fantastic job this group did in some fairly technical water. While the trout were feeding — somewhat irregularly on emergers, but mostly spinners, the hatch (sulphurs size 14-16) wasn’t going to break any records for volume. But we stuck with it, and before too long, my man Guppy connected with a nice rainbow on a size 20 Usual.
I’d just seen a trout nail a skittering sulphur on top, so when Guppy’s fly began to drag at drift’s end, I told him to let it be. Moments later, whack! How exhilarating when it all works out just like you drew it up in your mind.
I stayed to fish after our session, but the evening rise never materialized in any big way. There were far more emergers and duns in the late afternoon than in the evening, and no spinner fall to speak of. I managed to stick three trout in about two hours. When I climbed out of the river at 9pm, my legs felt like cold, semi-unresponsive lumps. I was shivering. The fishing had been disappointing. But it hadn’t rained. It hadn’t stormed. And I realized that just being there did indeed count for something.
On Thursday I guided Michael and Al from 2pm-6pm. My original plan was to explore some of the faster water in the PTMA, but an accident closed part of Rt. 44. So we decided to seek our pleasure downriver.
The stretch of water between Collinsville and Unionville is starting to warm up, but it’s still within an acceptable temperature range for trout (at least it was on Thursday). Depending on where you fish — i.e. below a long, pond-like stretch — you may find warmer water temperatures than in faster, deeper runs. Unless we get rain and a flow bump, the first real heat wave will torch this stretch. (Thanks, MDC, for your outstanding stewardship of the river, and genuine concern for preserving the resource…he said, dripping with sarcasm.)
We started in a run where I’d had some recent success, and while the action wasn’t hot and heavy, there were a few active fish to play with. We got into a mix of rainbows and juvenile Atlantic salmon, and it was gratifying to see two new wet fly anglers experience the thrill of the tug on a soft-hackled fly.
Al struck first, connecting with this lovely rainbow. How wonderful it is when theory is put into practice, and the trout do the rest of the heavy lifting. Both anglers did a great job, and enthusiastically embraced fishing under the hatch with wet flies.Same fish, heading for home. Most of our action came on creamy sulphury mayfly soft hackles and wingless wets.Does this guy look like he’s having fun? Al had to leave, so Michael and I walked a boulder field, picking pockets with wet flies. Today’s lesson is: When the water is low, look for the fastest, deepest water you can find, and cover every pocket, slot, and seam. By using this method, Michael found multiple trout willing to jump on. I loved his enthusiasm.
I finished the day fishing upriver. I swung wets from 7pm to around 7:30, and I managed three hookups in faster water, sadly losing a pig of wild brown when he wrapped the leader around a boulder. I’m still stinging from that loss, as it would have been my biggest Farmington fish this year. The good news was that he took a new Isonychia soft hackle prototype…and I know where he lives. I spent the next hour stubbornly swinging wets amidst a sulphur hatch that really never got going. I had two half-hearted touches, so I wasn’t sorry when I made the decision to switch to dry. I got three more fish in the next half hour, the first on a size 20 Magic Fly, the last two on Classic Catskills Light Cahill dries, sz 14-12. Even though the water was low, I used 5x tippet as part of a long leader, about 14 feet total length.
Looks like some much-needed rain over the next few days.
Moriel took a wet fly lesson with me yesterday from 2pm-6pm, and we were faced with the lowest flows I’ve encountered this year (thanks, MDC!) We started off in the PTMA, running just under 100cfs. By covering some fast water, we were able to conjure up a few hits, putting one juvenile Atlantic salmon in the hoop. Off to mark number two, below the PTMA. That was a major disappointment: zero-point-zero touches, no bugs, maybe 3-4 total rises in an hour. All the while, I was telling Moriel that he was producing many, many fish-worthy drifts, and that if he kept it up, he would some day-some time have one of those sessions we all dream about.
Two outs, bottom of the ninth found us way downstream. And just like that, trout began to materialize on our three fly team. We took them on a prototype Squirrel-Ginger-Sparkle diving caddis and our creamy mayflies. A gorgeous wild brown, stocked brook trout, grievously bird-wounded rainbow, and all of a sudden, our slow day turns into the grand salami. Today’s lesson: when the bite is slow, move around, cover water, and find the fish. Great job Moriel, and you excelled at letting the fish set the hook.
Tight lines and bent rods are a beautiful thing. A fine way to baptize a new stick. Well done, Moriel!
I decided to stay and fish the evening rise. When I arrived at 7pm, precious little was happening. I saw the first sulphur emerge at 7:10pm, but things really didn’t get going until 8:30pm. This mark had some faster water that held trout feeding on emergers and spinners; below me was a quasi-frog water stretch with very little current, and there the trout were smutting. The fish in the faster water were maddening; they’d go on a feed in one section, then stop. It would pick up in a completely different section, then stop. I never really got a handle on those fish, sticking two and dropping one in 90 minutes. I hooked and landed three more in the last half hour on classic Catskills-style Light Cahills, size 12-14. The last one came when I could no longersee the fly, so I used the bucket method of strike detection. It was my best fish of the evening, a 15″ rainbow who’s been eating well.
I fished for pleasure Wednesday evening, timing it so that I arrived at the mark on the lower river just as the thunderstorms were ending. There were a few small branches littering the roadway, but the water was surprisingly clear and free of debris. As I’d guessed would happen, I beat everyone else to the water and was able to secure some prime real estate. The river was quiet as I entered at 6pm, but the surface soon became dimpled by the tells of feeding fish.
This particular mark appeals to me because it’s a mix of moving runs and seams, eddying pockets, and a glassy pool bordering frog water. All of these places hold trout, and you’ve got to tailor your presentation, leader & tippet, and fly selection to meet the needs of each. Oh, and it all shifts and changes as daylight fades. It’s a difficult mark to get right, but when you figure it out, the rewards are great.
A healthy mid-teens Farmington brown taken on Mike Lawson’s Mayfly Cripple.
Wednesday night’s hatch window was textbook early summer. I had trout sipping spinners until dark, and I had trout slashing at emergers from 7:30pm until 8:45pm. I took fish on five different flies: Usual size 20, Magic Fly size 16 &18, Sulphur spinner size 20, classic Catskills Light Cahill size 12 & 14; and a new pattern I’d never fished before, Mike Lawson’s Mayfly Cripple in sulphur colors, size 16. I’ve never really gotten into the whole cripple thing, and the two times I’d fished this fly this year, the trout have largely ignored it. Not on this night. I stuck three good fish on it, and now it’s in my top rotation. The pattern is basically a Pheasant Tail bottom half with a sulphur dry top half that includes a thorax, hackle, and synthetic wing. (I’ll give you a pic and recipe soon.)
Say howdy to Mister White-Gloved. Iso time is a good time for all. This time of year, if you hear a take that sounds like someone threw a bowling ball into the river, chance are it was a trout feeding on Isonychia. Try a Hackled March Brown wet on point.
On Thursday I gave Brett a wet fly lesson. What a difference a day makes! We got a late start, so our window was 3:45-7:45, which should have meant a ton of bugs and visibly feeding fish. The bugs barely materialized; we saw a few sulphur, some tan caddis, and a couple Isos. Rises were few and far between, and none of the fish was in a regular feeding rhythm. Nonetheless, Brett slayed ’em. We stuck four at the first mark and I don’t know how many at the second — we easily put a double digits in the hoop. They ate every fly on the team (top dropper, Magic Fly size 14; middle dropper, new Squirrel and Ginger diving caddis prototype size 14; point fly tailed Partridge and Light Cahill size 14). We experienced a sequence where four consecutive fish took the diving caddis. More and more, I’m seeing evidence that this is a critical component of the three fly team. Brett did a fantastic job with his presentations and hook sets. If I were the trout, I’d be concerned.
I often hear apocryphal, unsubstantiated reports of wild rainbows on the Farmington River. So when Brett landed this fish, my curiosity was off the charts. Vivid coloration, unique spotting, minimal scale damage, parr marks…could it be?Could be…but isn’t. A closer look at the tail reveals a structure far too short and stubby for a wild fish. The anal fin also reveals the kind of shredding you’d find from repeated scraping against the bottom of a tank. Still, a striking creature.
Spoiled, selfish children have a habit of poor behavior when the game isn’t going their way. Their frustration reaches a boiling point. Then they grab their ball and storm off in a petulant frenzy. The result is that the game is over and ruined for everyone. The spoiled child in this case is the person (or people) in charge of making the flow decisions for the West Branch of the Farmington River. And once again, they’ve decided that if they’re miserable, everyone who uses the river for recreation should be miserable.
For years, it’s been no secret that the MDC doesn’t care about managing the West Branch as a viable tailwater fishery and recreational resource. For over a year now, their unconscionably selfish reaction to not wanting any further financial responsibility for Hogback Dam has been to release only the minimum flow as-required-by-law. Anglers be damned. Canoeists, kayakers and tubers be damned. Business who depend on robust river flows be damned. Fish and wildlife be damned. It’s their ball, and they’re taking it away in the name of corporate greed.
What’s wrong with this picture? As the flow drops like a stone toward the bare minimum — and let’s note that the reservoir is nearly full — you can see that the dicks at the MDC are releasing nearly 200cfs less than they normally do. Score one for corporate weasels!
If it’s all too confusing, this one-page, one-side sheet explains the legal flow requirements for both Colebrook and Goodwin dams. We thank the Farmington River Watershed Association for providing it. And we damn the MDC for reducing flows and damaging our river, simply because they can.
In the meantime, we can only hope for rain up north, which would require the MDC to release more water — and more rain locally, which would bump up the Still River.
currentseams.com 