Tag Archives: Steve Culton

Three — count ’em, three — hundred followers. Contest time!

Currentseams finally reached the big three-oh-oh. And I have you, loyal reader, to thank. We’ll be doing our usual flies-tied-by-Steve giveaway, only this time it will be three times better — because this time we’re going to have three winners!

One of the prizes will be one of each of the six striper soft-hackles I tied for my article in the next issue of American Angler. The other two will be a selection of trout or striper or steelhead flies. As they say in my kids’ school: “You get what you get and you don’t get upset.”

Striper Soft-Hackles

Here are the rules:

1) No purchase necessary.

2) You must be a follower of currentseams to enter.

3) To enter, leave a comment on this thread saying you wish to enter AND tell me a little about what you like about the site, or would like to see more of (this is my grassroots market research method). One entry per person. Deadline for entering is 11:59pm September 3, 2015. 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.

4) All decisions by me are final.

Thanks again for reading and following currentseams.

Farmington River Report: I have 20. Do I hear 21?

Some fish are gifts. Others are earned.

I got a little of both on this one. Earned by putting in my time for the past six weeks, then slogging through woods and water for thirty minutes on a steamy water-pouring-down-your-face August night, dodging beavers and raccoons and who knows what else just to get to this bloody out-of-the-way spot. Then, gifted with a sharp tug just five minutes into the fishing.

Battle details: taken in water moving at a good walking pace. The hit came as the dead drift transitioned to the swing. Two sharp tugs, then hook set (it has been reaffirmed this summer that the big ones rarely miss if you let them finish the job). Once hooked, the fish sounded as is the habit of larger trout. The interior dimensions of my net are 17×13: It took multiple attempts to net him, including one botched swipe where aluminum rim collided with spotted flank in a manner it probably ought not. The fly was an olive over black Master Splinter foam-backed mouse.

For some reason, the walk out seemed quicker.

Fishin’, writin’, ‘n’ stuff

Busy is the word here at currentseams, although I have been able to get out a little bit. Due to my schedule it’s all been night action.

I fished the Farmington twice this week with mixed results. The first night was painfully slow; two or three bumps in two hours, all small fish. Last night was far more active with over a dozen bumps. One standard-issue brown to net, and one big mysterious hit that failed to hold. I did do something stupid last night: I walked down a side stem I hadn’t fished in two years to discover it was basically unfishable, then decided to walk back up a different stem that was fast, deep, and should have been the one I fished. What a workout! It wasn’t a total waste of time as I did find some very fishy hide holes that I will investigate on a future outing.

On the writing front, I just submitted a steelhead piece to Mid Atlantic Fly Fishing Guide, and I’m putting the finishing touches on a soft-hackled flies for stripers article for American Angler. There are a few other things in the pipeline at some other pubs; I’ll let you know if they are accepted.

Finally, currentseams has reached 300 followers. Hooray! That means a fly giveaway. Details on that coming soon.

As always, thank you for your loyal readership. Writers aren’t much without readers, so I truly appreciate it.

Come say hello to currentseams. I know it’s my site, but really, most of it doesn’t suck. While you’re here, sign up to follow. You’ll get fishing reports, how-to articles, essays, fly tying, photos, videos, random stuff like this, and the occasional chance to win some flies tied by yours truly. 

Hello

Hello, old friend

Spring began as a promise and summer as a dream. Winter would relent at some point (God, it was long and cold!) and the water temperature would rise a few precious degrees and the stripers would begin to stir. We’d have the spring run – or not, as it turned out – but at least the sun would be warm on your face and you could feel your fingers and you would feel alive standing in the brackish water as it raced past your feet to meet the sea.

The herring would be in in a few weeks – or not, as it turned out – and with them would come the big bass (see previous “or not” statements). Worms would hatch, and anglers would mutter about picky fish, but all would be as it should. After that would come summer and sand eels and silvery Block Island bass covered in sea lice and eager to act twice their size. It all happened, and it was extraordinary, as each year is in its own way.

And now, it is fall.

The calendar won’t proclaim it so for another six weeks. Football is still in training camp. The warning track of meaningful September baseball is many strides away. But the first leaves have already fallen (you can find them in your yard right now). A few weeks ago your deck was in bright sunshine at 3pm. Now it’s in deep shade. The Dog Days (which have less to do with heat and humidity than with the position of Sirius, the Dog Star, relative to the sun) are nearly over. And so begins fall.

Last night I stood in a Cape Cod creek amid an assembled multitude of silversides. Against the far bank, stripers were feeding in earnest. They know it’s time to bulk up in preparation for that long journey home.

Welcome, old friend.

Don’t even get me started about steelhead. Big Steel 11:14

Farmington River Report: The rewards of putting in your time

After more blanks and (relatively speaking) dinks than I’d care to mention, finally a really good night. Hit four spots and found hungry fish in three of them. I had more bumps than I could count. Four fish to net, three in the upper teens, and the fourth just in at 20″.

This buck was hiding under a tree, waiting to ambush. Taken on the dead drift.

Brown Buck 8-15

~

A substantial hen that crushed the fly on the swing.

Brown Hen 8-2015

~

Saving the best for last. She whacked the fly on the swing, then followed up, but no hook set. Two casts later, I started to strip at the end of the swing. Ker-POW! I had a little trouble fitting her in the net.

Big wild brown hen 8-2015

Why I like foam-backed mouse patterns

Because if the gator brown photos come out lousy, you still have a record of a good night.

Evidence from a recent outing. This fly is called the Master Splinter (not my design). You can find the pattern recipe if you do an online search.

Chewed Mouse

Tip of the week: look for a reason to set the hook on every drift

This is one of my favorite nymphing maxims. It is one of those abstract truths that proves itself worthy of consideration many times over the course of a season — especially if you like to nymph with an indicator. Sure, false positives mean you also end up wearing your line, leader, and nymph rig around your head more than you’d care to. But those comical moments are quickly forgotten whenever hook point finds fishy mouth.

A few days ago, I set the hook for no reason other than my yarn indicator deviated ever so slightly from its course downriver. It didn’t go under. It didn’t stall. It didn’t shudder like it does when the rig is bumping along the rocky bottom. Nope, it just started to move in a way that neither current nor structure could account for. So I set the hook. And there he was, the best trout of the day, a mid-teens wild brown.

The guide I float with on the Salmon River, Jim Kirtland, likes to say, “It doesn’t cost anything to set the hook.” Make an investment in watching your sighter or indicator like a hawk — and watch the dividends roll in.

There was no mistaking the take of this fish, but I’ve had plenty of hookups with steelhead this size and bigger that began without the indicator going under. Once you think you know what you’re looking for — anything that looks like a remotely suspicious move by your indicator — the fun begins. Remember the sage advice of Ken Abrames: “It’s a fish until proven otherwise.”

Steel Cam and Me

Farmington River Mini Report 7/29/15: If only the fishing were this hot

You know it’s hot when you’re standing up to your waist in sixty-degree water and there’s sweat streaming down your face — and it’s only 10am.

I fished from 9am to 1pm today. My focus was on prospecting for bigger trout by nymphing the fast water. No bigguns’, but I did get into an assortment of lovely wild browns, one in the mid teens. I used the drop shot rig under a yarn indicator, with a size 14 olive Iron Lotus on the bottom and a size 16 soft-hackled Pheasant Tail as the top dropper. I adjusted between one and two BB shot, depending on the depth of the water and the speed of the current.

Now that is one impressive tail. Full adipose, nice little kype — this buck is a surely a wild thang. Taken on the SHPT. Why I like indicator nymphing: the indicator never went under with this guy. It was the slightest of takes, almost imperceptible. The indicator just suddenly slowed and twitched. Remember, it doesn’t cost anything to set the hook.

Wild Farmy Brown 7/29/15

Maybe it was the heat. Maybe it was the full sun. Maybe it was the lack of hatch activity. But I blanked in three runs today that I was certain held fish. The other three I hit all produced. Go figure — I did better outside of the permanent TMA. The river was surprisingly busy for a mid-weekday.

If you are heading out in this heat, please don’t forget to hydrate. And while the water is still plenty cold, let’s do our best to get those fish in and released quickly.

A jewel of a mid-summer Farmington brown. I can’t decide what I like better: the halos around the spots, the golden belly, or the parr mark remnants.

Wild Farmy Brown 2 7/29/15

Even if you don’t fly fish for stripers, you should read this

Ken Abrames taught me how to fly fish for stripers. (He taught me a lot more than that, but those are stories for another day.) He would tell you that it all came from within me, but clearly the striper angler I am today was formed by Ken’s hand. That stuff I post about striper fishing with five weight rods and three-fly teams and flies that are not much more than a few strands of bucktail and the hint of a suggestion of what the bait might look like? That’s all Ken’s influence. He recently wrote something on his website (stripermoon.com) that I liked so much, I wanted to share it with you. Even if you don’t fish for stripers, there are many pearls within. So, enough from me. Here it is:

“The tiny crabs are coming down the rivers
One-eighth to three-sixteenths across
They are translucent gold
And Fish eat them one at a time
no matter what you may have heard, they do not take them in mouthfulls
even though our reason says they must.
They are not burdened by reason as we are.
Size sixteen hooks and tiny goldish flies work
trout tackle

Also:
Isopods, tiny crustaceans that look like fresh water shrimp are swarming on the rock bars in the open ocean
The bass gorge on them
again, about a half- to three-quarters of an inch long
Dont be afraid of trout tackle.
Heavy leaders wont go throuugh the eyes of the trout hooks.
and
There is a major clam worm hatch going on in the open ocean too
These worms are of several kinds
One is yellow another is red
and another is red and yellow
They are thin from three quarter to two inches long and move like speed boats
and the squid and the bass are feeding on them.

So now you know
There are other ways to fish in the ocean than with standard gear…
it is always good to think outside of the box that marketing presents.
It doesn’t ever know how to lead
It follows
and when it leads it likes to control opinion
sales
that is business
but it is not fishing.
Fish do not read magazines or blogs.
Fishing is discovery not formula.”

Thirty-pounder on the fly. All because someone took the time to teach me how present a flatwing on a greased line swing.

Thirty pounder

Farmington River Tip of the Week

Yesterday, I went fishing. Sunny, middle of July, and windy. The perfect day for a grasshopper to get blown off its perch and into the water.

I fished some fast water — a mix of riffles and pockets that ranged from shin high to waist deep — with a team of three wets. The top dropper was a just-about-too-small-for-a-hopper-and-way-too-big-for-a-caddis fly I call The Monstrosity. Size 8-10 streamer hook, body of yellow or insect green rabbit fur, gold wire rib, palmered with webby brown hackle. Deer hair wing lashed at the junction of thorax and abdomen, same deer hair strands tied over the thorax, then a caddis-like head. Simple. Impressionistic. By mending the line I was able to keep that fly on or just below the surface.

The trout loved it.

Back you go, Tubby. Thanks for playing. Look at that sky. Ain’t summer grand?

Brown release

I whipped through the run in 45 minutes. No hatch, no active surface feeders, but the fish picked that fly out to the exclusion of all others (Drowned Ant and SHBHPT). None of the trout I brought to hand were under fifteen inches. And I regret to report that I lost a pig of a brown just as I was coaxing him into the net.

Hoppers. Wet or dry, ’tis the season.

Not the fly I was fishing — this is a Hopper Hammerdown, which is a little bigger than The Monstrosity and doesn’t have the soft hackle palmered along the whole body. But you get the idea and the energy of the design.

Culton_Hopper_Hammerdown