Tag Archives: soft hackled Mickey Finn

Crossroads Anglers awarded the Croix de Cheeseburger with IPA Clusters — and mini Housy streamer report

The book tour continues! Great turnout Tuesday night at the Crossroads Anglers in Foxboro, MA. They understand that a fed presenter is a happy presenter, so my pork dumplings and ghost pepper American cheese burger with fries, all washed down with a tasty IPA draft, was both delicious and much appreciated. We had a semi-lengthy (always a good thing!) post-talk Q&A session, which is my favorite part of presenting. I thank them for their hospitality and their enthusiasm.

Yesterday I decided to play hooky. Since I hadn’t yet done my annual fall Housy streamer outing, that was the call. The sun was welcome for feeling good, but not so much for fishing; and the wind was challenge in terms of casting and the volume of dead leaves it put in the water. Holy crowds, Batman! I counted eight anglers during my day, which is about six more than I would expect to see this time of year. So: water level excellent, leaves a problem. I fished seven marks and had bumps in only two of them, with one spirited rainbow to net. I spoke with several anglers who said they’d blanked; only one said he’d landed a trout. Hatch activity was basically non-existent; I think I saw three insects all day that weren’t midges. Oh. Yes. I also fell in. Completely soaked from the waist down. That wasn’t my favorite moment of the day.

The soft-hackled Mickey Finn is an oldie but a goody. (Speaking of old, this photo might be ten years old.) I started fishing a soft-hackled Black Ghost, but lost it at the second mark to a streamside tree. My action came on the SHMF, which has been a good producer on this river over the years. I was mystified by the lack of action, though. That’s why they call it fishing, and all that…

Housy Streamer Report 10/21/21: First and Last

The trip didn’t start out like I’d hoped. While I was gearing up, I discovered that I’d forgotten my wading staff. (With flows over 1,300cfs, that would have come in handy.) Then, I realized I’d forgotten my streamer reel and line. Since I was dedicating the session to the streamer cause, I lined up with something I had remembered: my integrated full sinker. It was a classic case of, “somehow, it all works out,” because there were so many leaves in the water. By using a full sink and a tungsten-head streamer, I was generally able to avoid vegetation hits.

First cast with a Mickey Finn soft-hackle, and whack! I hadn’t even begun my strip cadence. It was a quartering cast downstream, and as I fumbled for the line, the streamer sank and began to move down and across. That’s when the hit came. It was a lovely holdover brown, about a foot long, and I thought this was going to be the start of a day where you land a pile of fish just by showing up. ‘Twas not to be. I didn’t see another angler hook a fish over two hours, and there were plenty of people out and about on this fine fall day.

The night before, I tied up two old Housy favorites, the soft-hackled Mickey Finn and Black Ghost. This is an old, crappy photograph, but essentialy the flies have a template of marabou tail, then a contrasting marabou hackle and some black Ice Dub for a collar. There’s flash, too; sometimes I use Krystal Flash and sometimes Flashabou. I’ll try to put together a complete recipe and shoot some better photos of the steamers.

A few minutes later, I stuck what I thought was going to be my biggest trout of the year. I’d felt a solid bump on the cast before; I repeated the cast, and the fish did not miss the second time. It sounded and bulldogged and I realized I might have hooked into a trophy brown. When I finally got its head up, surprise! Smallmouth. A good one, too, mid teens and fat, with dramatic fall camo colors. That’s the latest in the season I’ve ever caught a decent smallie on the Hous.

I visited a second mark and managed a courtesy tap, but with the clock ticking I moved to the last spot. This section was moving faster than the previous two pools, and with a well-defined slot I made the decision to switch to the long-leader jigged mini-streamer. Slow going, but I was rewarded with a fat stocker rainbow on my last cast. And that, I thought, is the perfect way to bookend a two-hour streamer set.