Tag Archives: nature

Block Island All-Nighter VII: Ode To A Sleepless Night (with apologies to Robert Frost et al)

Every year in June, we head out to Block Island for the annual all-nighter. Small posse this year, consisting of a skeleton crew of your humble scribe and Dr. Griswold. Staying up all night striper fishing can be challenging, even when the bass are on. When the bite is off, like this year, it can be downright excruciating. Perhaps a little poetry will help ease the pain. And so, without further ado…

On Father’s Day it was decreed
That Bob and Steve would do this deed:
A journey to the Island Block
To fish for stripers ‘round the clock.
~
At 8pm our trip begins
With deep fried scallops fresh from Finns
Steaming hot, and by the way
Most tasty with an IPA.
~
Thus fortified, we hit the beach
To see if stripers were in reach
On my third cast I felt a chew
Alas! Fly gone. A freakin’ blue.
~
With toothies out I thought it wise
To tie on last year’s game-used flies
At 10pm right on the dot
I moved to fish another spot.
~
The hit was solid, hard and strong
The big bass’ run was nice and long
She tugged and pulled, I ‘bout fell back
In horror when my line went slack.
~
I reeled in to have a look:
You’re kidding, right? She broke my hook!
That’s what I get, such foolish settle
On older, tarnished, fragile metal.
~
Another bass took in a trough,
But moments later, he was off
‘Twas then I had but just one wish
Dear Lord, can I please land a fish?
~
Finally, there’s a striper hit –
Missed, but he came back (the git)
Reeled him in right near my feet
But he jumped off ‘fore we could greet.
~
Meanwhile Bob, my friend, poor sap
Had not even got a single tap
I wondered to myself, what’s worse?
No bites or losing fish (then curse)?
~
At half past one we made the call
To roll the dice, nothing or all
A place that surely would produce
Striped bass instead of eggs de goose.
~
But once again, the going’s rough
At 2am Bob says that’s enough
An hour later I did agree
Besides, I was cold and had to pee.
~
Bob awakened from his rest
And off we went with little zest
Depression, desperation near
Another crappy fishing year?
~
Bob’s lone striper came at five
And plus two fluke, now he’s alive
Meantime I was catching weeds
Just one more bass! I so did plead.
~
Sunup – 5:30 – and that is it
Time for us to call it, quit.
Coffee, pancakes, eggs and bacon
To fill an empty stomach’s quakin’.
~
And so dear friends we close this rhyme
Be back next year, same place, same time
This lousy fishing’s got to end
The only question now is – when?
 Before: Unhappy Coaster.

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After: Coaster and friend, a pint of Fisherman’s IPA. Delicious, and a total hop bomb.

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Being a night owl, I usually miss sunup. Darn pretty, this one. You’ve been officially warned, sailor.

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So much water the stream was on fire

I had taken about six steps into the brook when I fell in. A poor foothold, a little water ballet in a desperate attempt to regain my balance, then flat on my seat, left forearm soaked and a shot glass-worth of water into my waders.

Well, I thought, things could only get better.

They did. The creek was up, but at a perfect medium-high level, almost imperceptibly tinged, and running at a cool 63 degrees. What’s more, the skies were a grey block of granite. Rain was coming. But for now, it was just me, the woods, the brook, and the trout.

How you can tell it’s mid-June in the Connecticut woods. Our state flower, the mountain laurel, grows wild anywhere there’s shade. Some of the shrubs don’t produce flowers, but plenty of them were decked out in their white streamside finery.

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I spent the better part of the morning committed to the dry upstream cause, even though I knew it was costing me fish in some of the deeper pools. Most of the trout I raised were small — three inches or less — and very few of them were actually hooked. That was OK with me, though. Just to know they’re there tells me the brook is in fine shape, and those fish will be seven-inch lunkers in a few years.

My best brookie of the day took a dry presented upstream in a dappled seam that rushed along the side of a large boulder. She ran all the way into the bottom of the next pool. Terrific little fighter, this one.

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One product of receding high waters is that the fish are spread out in the brook. I found trout almost everywhere I went, including some places where I usually don’t. Many times I could see them bull-rush the fly (a size 16 Improved Sofa Pillow) as soon as it hit the water. When the water’s up like this, I like to plop the fly in the middle of a glassy micro-pond at the edge of a plunge pool or current seam. The brookies suddenly  materialize from beneath the maelstrom, or the inky protective edge of underwater structure. I had a lot of first cast hits today.

Not much going on hatch-wise: midges, mosquitos, and a few stay caddis.

On the way out, I decided to take a page from my recent Upstream, Downstream, Small Stream article and fish a few of the deeper pools with a downstream weighted wet. The fly was a beadhead Grey Hackle Peacock, and among the trout that found it to their liking was a spiffy brown, who tracked the fly on the retrieve before striking.

Halo, I love you. Nice brown, lousy photo. This is what happens when your good camera runs out of battery and you’re forced to go with a quickie from the phone.

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I was able to coax the better part of two hours out of this morning’s cigar, a Gispert Churchill. The air was still enough to blow smoke rings over dark waters, where the fishing was incendiary.

Small Stream 101: Fishing the outgoing tide.

The brook was dozens of miles from the sea. Yet there I was, fishing the outgoing tide. At least that’s what I started calling it several years ago. Let me explain.

What I mean is, I’m fishing a small stream in the day or days after a heavy rain. As with an ebbing tide, the water level is dropping. It’s a great time to fish. Here’s why. The waters have gone from raging and murky to some semblance of normal. They may still have a light tea stain to them, which makes it a little harder for the fish to see you, but not your fly. Most of all, the trout have transitioned from hunker-down survival mode to dinner bell-ready. That was certainly the case today.

I would crawl on my hands and knees through a skunk cabbage-filled boggy mess to catch a wild brookie like this. Oh, wait. I did.

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The lovely woodland stream I visited today is one I haven’t fished in many months. I usually make a pilgrimage in April, but the time-space fishing continuum conspired against me. The woods are only starting to display a vague suggestion of green in April, but on May 31st they were  lush. It was already too hot and humid to be bushwhacking in waders at 8am, and non-biting midges swarmed me. Such was the price of admission for the wild troutstavaganza.

There were fish everywhere, with plenty of young-of-year brookies in the mix. This is always a good sign, as 2012’s new recruits will be 2015’s lunkers. It’s especially gratifying to see nature finding a way after last year’s terrible late summer drought and heat wave.

This blindingly beautiful wild brown hit the dry like a ton of bricks. Excuse me for a minute. I’ve got to wipe away the drool I got while gazing longingly at those parr marks.

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The fish were particularly active today. I witnessed three good-sized (for this stream — it’s small enought to jump across in more than one spot) trout feeding on the surface. Two were noisily slashing at emergers; the third was clearing the surface as he chased caddis. All of them were camera shy. Every time I tried to shoot some video, they suddenly stopped feeding. Little bastards.

Fished a new dry today, the (Improved) Sofa Pillow in a size 16, along with a bead head Grey Hackle Peacock. The dry got the lion’s share of the action, fished mostly upstream. Pricked a good couple dozen trout, and lost many of them when the hookee ran into the omnipresent underwater stick pile. These twig and branch masses were everywhere. One of the pitfalls of fishing right after a big storm.

Today’s implements of destruction: A bead head version of the classic wet, the Grey Hackle Peacock, and the (Improved) Sofa Pillow.

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I held out on the cigar for as long as possible, but eventually the midges tipped the scales. Nonetheless, I declared victory as they scattered. Thank you, Romeo & Julieta Havoc Magnum. Besides, I managed to ignore work for the entire morning while catching wild trout. Clearly, that makes me the winner.

How does a stream stay cool in piss-stinking hot weather like today’s? Canopy. This photo was taken at high noon, yet virtually the entire stream is covered in shade. Nature finds a way.

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UConn wants to divert 5 million gallons of water a day from the Farmington River. What can you do about it? Start here.

Yes, the same UConn that drained the Fenton River Class 3 Wild Trout Management Area dry a few years back, killing hundreds of trout. They’re up to their greedy, water-sucking ways again. Only this time it’s the Farmington River they’re after. Yep, the same Farmington River that had lethally low flows last August, killing scores of fish. But, what’s another five million gallons a day in the name of progress? So what if we have to build a pipeline halfway across the state? Who cares if more fish die, or if people can’t fish or kayak or float, or if businesses that depend on the river suffer?

If you do care, please sign this petition. Pass it along to a friend.

http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/voice-your-support-for?utm_source=2013-05-30+UConn-MDC+water+petition+%2B+calls&utm_campaign=UConn+water+petition+5-30-13&utm_medium=email

The future of the Farmington remains cloudy. Help send a clear message to UConn and the MDC: Leave our river alone!

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Farmington holdover browns on wet flies

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.

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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.

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Now, if the trout will only cooperate Saturday.

It’s wildflower season on the Farmy. I don’t know what these are, but they’re everywhere.

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Farmington River Report: Fishing under the Hendrickson hatch with wet flies

After’s Wednesday’s hatchstravaganza, I decided it was a moral imperative the go back to the Farmington on Thursday. Unfortunately, the time-space continuum prevented me from attempting another daily double. So I sacrificed a repeat of the morning caddis frenzy for Hendricksons in the afternoon.

Got to my spot at 1pm. Not a bug in sight, not a fish rising, but the Hendrickson hatch on the Farmington is like clockwork. Even though you don’t see anything on the surface of the river or in the air, there’s a lot going on down below. First cast, a mend across some current seams into a pocket, and bam! Just like that, we’re catching trout on Hendrickson wets.

Like yesterday, a good mix of stocker browns, chubby rainbows, and holdovers. This brown has been in the river for a while. It took me several attempts to hook him, but it was well worth the wait.

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The hatch was even stronger today, and as it picked up in intensity, it was harder to catch trout, I think because of the sheer number of bugs in the water. Unlike yesterday, where all you had to do was pick a rise and put your flies over it, there were a good half dozen trout today that I could not entice to strike, and another half dozen that took repeated attempts over the course of an hour. Fortunately, there were plenty of wanton gluttons willing to jump on. I caught trout on the dead drift, the greased line swing, and the dangle.

My rig was a Squirrel and Ginger caddis as the top dropper, a Dark Hendrickson winged wet as the second dropper, and another Hendrickson below it. As the hatched waned, I did see some caddis start to come off, and a few of my last fish took the S&G caddis.

And, like clockwork, it was over by 3:30. Water temp was 53 degrees.

Spectacular wet fly action on the Farmington River

“People tell me I’m the world’s greatest comedian. Ask me why people tell me I’m the world’s greatest comedian.”

“Why do people tell you –“

“Timing!”

Sometimes it’s like that with wet flies. Time the hatch just right, and you can look like the second coming of Joe Brooks. Legions of obliging trout and the right fly don’t hurt, either.

Such was my good fortune on Wednesday. The DEEP had recently stocked the upper TMA with several thousand trout. Armed with this intelligence, I met Todd Kuhrt and his brother in New Hartford, and we were on the water by 10:30am. We had won the April weather lottery, with blazing, brilliant sunshine and temperatures that were supposed to climb into the low 60s. I was rigged up for nymphing, so I wandered off to the head of a deep run while Todd and his brother set up shop a hundred yards downstream.

 A nice holdover brown taken on a Dark Hendrickson winged wet.

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Catching nothing when you’re expecting to bail fish is lesson in humility, and I took my licks for an hour. By the time had I worked my way down to Todd and Scott, I still hadn’t had a touch. They had each taken three on nymphs. The ignominy.

But, sometimes you must endure such hardships to reach Nirvana. I realized that what I really wanted to do on this glorious spring day was swing wet flies, smoke cigars, and relish the fact that I was blowing off all the work to do. So I swapped out my nymph rig for a team of three wets I had tied up the night before: a size 14 Partridge and Green dropper, a size 12 Squirrel and Ginger caddis in the middle, and a classic Hendrickson Dark on point. I had just finished nymphing a run, and now I made a quartering cast downstream. The trout hit just after the third mend. First cast. Wet fly. Squirrel and Ginger.

Life was good again.

It was about to get great.

For the previous fifteen minutes, I had been eyeballing some splashy rises about 50 yards downstream from me. Unfortunately, a spin angler had the area on lockdown. But now he was packing up his gear. I coiled my line in my hand and made a beeline for the trail along the river’s edge. This being a gentleman’s sport, it’s probably uncouth for a middle-aged man to race through the woods with his fly rod just to secure a fishing spot. But sometime we must toss propriety to the wind and indulge our inner barbarian.

 The fly of the morning, my Squirrel and Ginger caddis wet.

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The air was teeming was caddis, and the surface film was being punctured by the slashes of feeding trout. I couldn’t see any bugs on the water, so I figured the trout were taking emergers just below the surface. That’s the cool thing about newly stocked fish on the Farmington. They discover pretty quickly that those food pellets aren’t on the menu anymore. I picked out a rise, and made a cast. Bap! On the caddis emerger. In fact, the first eight trout I caught all picked that Squirrel and Ginger out of my lineup of three. I clipped off the Hendrickson and tied another caddis on. I soon had my first double.

Crazy kids. My first double of 2013.

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OK, so they were just dumb stockers. But, it’s hard to embrace self-loathing when you’re having so much fun. I waved Todd and his brother down so they could get in on the caddis orgy that was – hard to believe – building in intensity. I can’t say it was a fish on every cast. But I also can’t remember too many drifts that didn’t draw a strike. All you had to do was look for a rise, then swing your fly over it.

It would have been unfair to expect a repeat on the lower TMA. I really just wanted to see if the Hendrickson hatch was in full swing. Turns out that it was. We got to our target pool around 2:00pm. Same intense, splashy rises, and the air thick with windblown Hendrickson duns. Same drill, too: find a rise. Swing your fly over it. Come tight to the take that was sure to follow. Unfortunately, Todd and his brother had to leave at the height of the action, but I stuck it out for another 45 minutes until the hatch wound down. Upstream, it had been all stocked browns; here, the fish were bigger, with a substantial number of fat rainbows and a few big holdover browns in the bargain.

 Ending on a high note: the best fish of the day was my last, this chubby holdover brown hen. 

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That night, I noticed a little sunburn on my hands. My arm was pretty sore, too. Life’s tough, you know?

Industrial-Strength Wild Browns

Not all trout streams are created equal. There may have been a time when this one could have been called pristine. But that was a good industrial revolution and dozens of deserted factories ago.

This river may have hit every branch on its way down the ugly tree, but it is not without its charms. If you can get past the cinder blocks, broken glass, and discarded aluminum siding, you’ll find ducks. Plenty of invertebrate life. And wild brown trout.

Just look at those pecs. Someone’s been working out. My best fish of the day.

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I had originally planned to go striper fishing today, but unfavorable reports, unavailable cohorts, and a nasty south wind put that idea to rest. Still, I needed to fish. So I decided to head over to a Class 1 WTMA. Before this past March, I hadn’t fished this stream in years. Buoyed by my success 10 days I ago, I thought I would explore it a little further.

Nothing says “wild trout” like urban factory blight. You could hit this building from the stream with a good enough cast.

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Second cast, and I was into the fish pictured above. Today’s fly was a white beadhead min-bugger, and this lovely brown clobbered it on the downstream strip. It’s funny how you find fish in the same sections of river over the years. This one was sitting in — where else? — a current seam. I took a few more smaller fish in parts below, then headed up to another section.

I find that old heater hose gives any fly fishing experience that romantic je ne sais quoi. Don’t you?

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That was a mistake. Most of the river was densely overgrown with saplings that made even roll casting impossible. The bottom was covered with fly-eating branches and in one pool, some kind of evil magnetic-to-tungsten bead flies metal grate.  By the third snagging encounter, I decided to pack it in.

I did notice that the suckers were in for spawning. There was also a strong midge hatch. Most of all, there were gloriously-colored wild browns, alive and well in living in their own little version of paradise.

Beauty truly comes from within.

Peepers. But sadly, no stripers.

I usually fish for stripers twelve month a year, but somehow January and February escaped me in 2013. March nearly got away, too. But I took care of that last night.

Met old fishing buddy Dr. Griswold to catch the bottom of the tide at one of our old haunts. The conditions were certainly favorable. A strong moon tide, good water level, and a water temp of 46. But alas, no stripers for either of us. I swung. I greased lined. I nymphed. I stripped. I jigged. I fished deep, on top, and all points in between. But, you can’t catch what isn’t there.

On a positive note, Bob didn’t lose his Christmas gift. Every year I tie some flatwings for friends as a present, and every year Bob loses his fly on the bottom or in a tree within the first five minutes of fishing it. Not last night. Well done, Bobber.

What Santa brought this year: the Rock Island flatwing

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I was also able to coax ninety minutes out of an E.P. Carillo Golossos while on the water. Terrific cigar.

And when I got home, the choir was singing. Spring peepers. Their first performance signals that the over-wintering bass in my local rivers are getting ready to move.

Not tonight. But soon.

Small Stream Wild Browns For Lunch.

No, no. Not the kind you eat. The kind you use as an excuse to avoid that pitfall of adulthood: Responsibility.

Back when I had a salaried job, I was fortunate to work within short driving distance of two Class 1 WTMAs. Many were the warm spring days when I’d take an elongated lunch to wet a line. Well, just because I’m working from home now doesn’t mean I couldn’t do likewise. And so today, I did.

I hadn’t been to either of these streams in years. “Hello, old friend,” I said to the first as I stepped out of the truck. The water was a perfect height, clear, 44 degrees, and there were midges and small grey stones flitting about. After last summer’s drought I wasn’t sure what to expect. So I decided to hedge my bets by fishing a size 14 beadhead white mini-bugger. I never met the wild trout who didn’t like a flashy streamer in early spring.

Hello, Mr. Stone. You successfully navigated to this rock without falling prey to Mr. Trout’s jaws. Fly and be free!

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It felt both familiar and comforting to cast, mend, and swing that fly across my old stomping grounds. Nothing in a few of my favorite pools, then – bump – was that a fish or the bottom? Next cast I’m on with a lovely little brown, about five inches long. A fish to hand is currency, and with that trout my trip was bought and paid for. More nothing as I waded downstream. Then, near the tailout of a languid pool – was that a rise? You betcha. Small fish, smutting, and the best solution I had in my box was a size 20 Winter/Summer caddis. First drift, up he comes, but the hook point found no purchase. And that was that. Try as I might, I couldn’t coax a reprise.

With my time budget melting like the remaining snow pack, I motored over to WTMA number two. Fished a run where I’d had some early season success before, but drew a blank. I was just getting ready to leave when I talked myself into venturing about 50 yards downstream. There, in some shallow riffles, I hooked another small brown who liberated himself as I pulled him out of the water. Then, in the run below, bang! Classic hit on the strip. A stunning brown about ten inches long, his tummy the color of aged cheddar and pectoral fins the size of kayak paddles.

So what if I would have to work tonight?