Tag Archives: Steve Culton

Farmington River Report 9/4/14: Delusions of Chrome

I don’t care how good an angler you are: sooner or later, you are going to make a mistake on the water. Sometimes you pay. Others, you still inherit the forune. On this morning, I got a little lucky.

It was another session dedicated to the nymphing cause. I hadn’t been doing any serious nymphing since there was ice along the river’s edge, and it felt good to be returning to my fly fishing roots. The first spot I visited was a blank. I fished it hard for 45 minutes, then decided to head upriver.

Another ten minutes without a take. Then down went the indicator. And this is where I messed up. I had been repeatedly reminding myself, “set downstream.” So what’d I do? I set upstream, as Eric M so eloquently expressed it, “instinctively doing the wrong thing.” Almost immediately, I corrected with a hard downstream set. Thus begineth the battle. I could see I had something good after his first impressive clear-the-water-by-a-few-body-lengths aerial, followed by one desperately ugly surface somersault. All worthy of fresh chrome. Eyeballing aside, I can always tell I have a good fish when I have an “I think I may be snagged on the bottom” moment. Then I feel that dampened head shake sensation as the fish yields to the pressure. This cantankerous creature did not want to come to net. After several runs and a short walk downstream, he was in.

Another fish that clearly has been in the river for some time: wide pink banding, perfectly formed paddle tail, and just look at those fins. Fat, healthy, and powerful — he’s been eating well. A measurement placed it just a bit shy of the 20″ mark. No complaints here.

Big Rainbow 9-14

A few minutes later, I landed his younger brother. Then a wild brown. Spot C, another classic nymphing hole, delivered a few more wild browns. As the sun edged past its noon zenith, I fished Spot D, a collection of current seams (oh, that phrase), pockets, plunges and runs. Another brown, and then what I believe to be a brown/Atlantic salmon hybrid*. I am not exaggerating when I tell you this guy made head high aerials. (That is correct. Plural.) I figured rainbow, because of its color and acrobatics, but when I got it to hand it looked — well, different. Damn me, I didn’t think to get a picture. 

Here’s what was most fascinating to me today: I fished a two fly nymph rig with a size 12 bead head Squirrel and Ginger on point and a size 14 soft-hackle Pheasant Tail top dropper. The fish took both flies — but with one exception, all the wild browns took the soft-hackle. Again, some very subtle takes on the soft-hackle — almost like the indicator stalls for a microsecond. Set, and I was on.

The rainbows found the size 12 bead head Squirrel and Ginger to their liking.

BHS&G Nymph

*In conversations with DEEP Fisheries biologists, they’ve revealed that they think some of the more precocious Atlantics canoodle with browns. I believe this is the second such offspring I’ve caught.

 

 

 

Kicking off the 2014-15 season with three appearances

Yup, it’s that time of year again. Three speaking engagements over the next thirty days, one of them hopefully near you. I really love presenting. It’s a great way to connect with other anglers at a grass-roots level. Hope to see you at one of them. And here we go.

Thursday, September 11, 7pm, I’ll be speaking at the Hammonasset Chapter TU meeting. The subject will be The Eastern Brook Trout: New England’s Wild Native. Location is the QRWA headquarters, located at 540 Oregon Road, Meriden, CT.

UDS Brookie1

Thursday, September 18, 7:30pm, I’ll be presenting Wet Flies 101 at the TU Croton Watershed meeting in Pleasantville, NY. You can get directions from their website, cwctu.org.

Soft-hackles

Wednesday, October 1, 7pm, TU Naugatuck Pomperaug Chapter meeting in Naugatuck, CT. An encore performance of The Eastern Brook Trout. You can directions at tunaugpomp.org.

You don’t need to be a TU member to attend any of these meetings. Please be sure to say hi to me if you decide to come. I have more appearances scheduled, and I’ll post them as the dates get closer. I’m also working on a new presentation that should be ready soon. 

Thanks to all of you who subscribe to and read currentseams. I truly appreciate it.

Farmington River Mid-Labor Day Weekend Report

On Thursday I finally got around to making my first dedicated-to-the-nymphing-cause trip of the summer. As I was walking down to my first spot, an angler upstream — presumably trying to be helpful — shouted out, “There are no fish in there. They’re all gone.” Well, one of us is going to be wrong, I thought to myself. One hour and three trout later, I was pleased that it wasn’t me.

I fished a new nymph setup that day, a drop-shot rig. My version was a leader about 8 feet long, then an emerger-like nymph dropper on a tag of 4# Maxima, then 16″ of 5# Rio nylon, another nymph, then a 6″ tag of the 5# with 2 BB shot at the bottom. The shot tag is tied off the bottom nymph hook eye. (If I get enough interest, I will draw and post a diagram.) The point of the rig is to get the weight on the bottom where it should be, then suspend the flies at different heights just off the bottom. You can fish it neat or with an indicator. I went the indicator route. Obviously, you already know it worked. I did, however, drop three fish in the course of the day, and I wondered if that bottom fly is harder for a fish to grab since it isn’t swinging freely. More research is required. Lucky me!

This rainbow has been in the river for a while. Well-defined pink lateral band, intact scale pattern, perfect fins.

Rainbow Release

Off to the second spot, where I landed a rotund wild brown (all the browns I took today were never wards of the state). Met up with friend Todd, and we each managed fish a ways downstream. By now, though, it was 11:00am and the bite had slowed. Away we went to Spot D, where we met up with Peter Jenkins of Saltwater Edge fame. Todd showed off by catching all the trout.

Mr. High Hook Spot D in action.

Todd Fish On

I dropped one more fish at Spot E before I had to make tracks toward responsibilities. The two flies I fished were a size 16 soft-hackled Pheasant Tail on the top dropper and a BH Squirrel and Ginger on bottom. The fish showed no preference, split right down the middle on the two.

On Saturday, I was able to fish for two hours between games at my son’s soccer tournament. Wet fly was the method, and while I found plenty of fish willing to jump on, they were all juvenile Atlantic salmon. Still, a lovely interlude on the water.

I would not feel so all alone.

Stonefly Case

Reminder: Starting Monday, September 1, the lower TMA becomes catch-and-release.

Striper Report 8/24/14: Back to Silverside City (with apologies to David Bowie)

Hey man, this report is so late.

Hey man, the fishing wasn’t that great.

Enough of that. To the outing. Hoyo de Monterey double corona on the drive down. Most excellent. Time and tide conspired to create supreme fishiness at dusk. Sadly, the bass did not cooperate. So after an hour of good old-fashioned college trying, I left the windswept rocky shores and rolling breakers for the friendly confines of the inside.

Out of the truck and a walk and wade to spot B. The bad news: weeds. An obscene amount of weeds. Weeds on every cast weeds. The good news: infestation levels of silversides, with bass feeding on them. The challenge: make your fly (or in my case, flies: 2″ super-sparse peanut bunker bucktail on top dropper, a 2.5″ Eelie in the middle, and a 3.5″ September Night [have I mentioned that it is time to tie up some September Nights?] on point) stand out among the thousands of naturals.

On the one cast out of a hundred that I managed to both, I hooked two bass. They weren’t big, but they gave me the illusion that I had triumphed over nature.

Last stop, another spot on the inside. In theory, it was a brilliant move. In practice, it was good for casting. Ten minutes in, I realized that I was tragically flawed as a prognosticator, and I should lick my wounds on the way home. And celebrate my one-in-a-hundred good fortune.

With no listening choices other than AM or FM, I subjected myself to what passes for classic rock, but is in reality dreadful pre-programmed subscription crap for the masses. Seriously, I don’t need to hear “Bohemian Rhapsody” twice in one night. Once every six months would be fine. Ditto anything by Journey or Billy Joel. And I don’t ever need to hear “The Joker” again.

Sorry if you like those artists or songs. Don’t lean on me man.

Here’s a short video of the bait situation. I actually hooked more silversides than stripers tonight.

 

 

 

 

Farmington River Mini-Report 8/22/14: Wet and wild

I had two hours to fish on Friday afternoon, so I jumped on it. I bounced around the lower river, visiting a few spots that I hadn’t fished all year. The air had a fall-like feel; it was overcast, and the river was running at 417cfs and 66 degrees. Bug activity was sparse and sporadic: a few small caddis, midges, and BWOs. 

This was a dedicated-to-the-wet-fly-cause outing. I swung a team of a sz 12 hackled March Brown on top, a sz 14 Drowned Ant in the middle, and the old reliable sz 12 soft-hackled BHPT on point. (I like a tungsten bead head fly on point when the water is running higher than normal. With a few strategic mends, it sinks the team faster, and also expedites deeper short line dead drift presentations.)

The PT was the runaway favorite fly. I hooked a nice assortment of wild browns with a few JV salmon in the mix. I had some hideous luck as well: not once, but twice I lost a good fish when he went deep and one of the flies on my team got entangled on rocks or vegetation. I lost two-thrids of my rig on the last one and called it a day.

Fat, healthy, and ready to rumble, these wild Farmington River browns are a treat to catch. Many of the takes today were subtle; more of a building of pressure on the mended swing than a clobbering hit. Good stuff.

IMG_2344

A team of three wet (fly fishermen)

And so it came to pass that the Culton men went forth on a crisp, sunny August afternoon and swung wet flies on the Farmington River. Okay. So Gordon was fishing a soft-hackled streamer, and was using a spinning rod. The point is — well, if you’ve ever taken your kids, or any kids fishing, you already know.

Watch out for those trees on the backcast. Cam didn’t catch anything, but he did a more than capable job casting and presenting his soft-hackles. Another place and time and he could have been well into some trout. A fly addict is born.

IMG_2334

Gordo’s juvenile Atlantic salmon. Dad hooked it on a hackled March Brown spider, Gordon landed it with the ten-and-a-half-foot rod. “Can I hold it?” he wanted to know. You betcha. Just get your hands wet, and watch out. They like to jump.

IMG_2329

Public Hearing on Striped Bass Management, August 26, 2014, Old Lyme, CT

This information comes from Charlie Kreitler, a fellow striper and fly aficionado:

Please take a moment to read up on the proposed management plans for striped bass in 2015 and beyond. There is only one public hearing on this in Connecticut, which will be August 26 in Old Lyme.

http://www.asmfc.org/calendar/08/201…ddendum-IV/563

The Draft Addendum can be read here:
http://www.asmfc.org/files/PublicInp…licComment.pdf

Options that are being considered are:
* What level of harvest reduction should be made?
* Should the reduction in harvest take place over 1, 2, or 3 years?
* Should bag limits and minimum size change, and should a slot be imposed?
Specific options under consideration are in the proposal. I suspect that supporting one of them is much more effective than proposing your own solution, but that’s just me.

Public comment is being accepted in writing or in person at the hearings. 

To me, the most important thing here is that fishery managers are FINALLY acknowledging that the species is not healthy and that action should be taken. Let’s encourage them to be responsible and protect the health of the species.

~

Thanks to Charlie for the alert. Grass-roots activism, baby. Grass-roots activism. If you can’t attend, make your voice heard and send Mike Waine your thoughts at mwaine@asmfc.org.

How can you refuse a beautiful face like that?

FridayBIBass

 

 

A thought-provoking essay on the coming striped bass crash

That striped bass are a sport fishing species in trouble is not new information. We’ve already been to the edge in our lifetime. What’s most troubling about the situation is that there is no uniform policy in place to protect these fish — and the bait stocks they feed on —  from big government all the way down to grass-roots anglers. There is confusion at the grass-roots level as well — yesterday on Mike Francesa’s show on WFAN, one of his guests waxed nostalgic about what a great job the authorities have done to boost striper stocks. Really? You’re kidding, right? Sadly, he wasn’t.

This piece by Zach Harvey appeared in a recent Rhode Island edition of Coastal Angler Magazine: http://coastalanglermag.com/rhodeisland/2014/08/fish-focus-shame-us/

A Block Island keeper lives to fight another day. Every year, tens of thousands of her sisters aren’t so lucky.

FridayBIBass

Steve Culton on HAN Radio’s Yankee Fisherman

I must have a great face for radio. Why else would John Kovach be gracious enough to invite me back on his Yankee Fisherman show on HAN Radio? We covered lots of topics: this summer on the Farmington, the effects flows have on fishing, fishing wets as dries, long leaders, setting the hook, and just what the Dog Days really means.

Thanks again to John and his team for having me. Here’s the link to the show:

 
A grey, mysterious summer morning on the Farmington. Who knows what possibilities the day will bring?
Morning Fog

What’s going on around here?

Much. Here are some details.

Radio/Podcast: I just recorded a segment on fall/summer fishing the Farmington with John Kovach’s Yankee Fisherman show on HAN radio. I’ll post the link when I get it.

Magazine articles: Look for upcoming articles in the Mid Atlantic Fly Fishing Guide (Salmon Fishing for Stripers); The Drake (W/S Caddis); Fly Fish Journal (The Streak, a 12-month striper odyssey); and American Angler (tbd…this will motivate me to get those story ideas to the editor).

Web articles: Last night I started my 2014 Block Island Diary. I promise it won’t suck. I have a few interviews with Ken Abrames to sort through — currentseams.com exclusives. And of course regular fishing reports and tying articles/videos.

Appearances: Yup, it’s that time of year. I’ll be presenting Wet Flies 101 at the TU Croton Watershed meeting on Thursday, September 18th. You can find directions at cwctu.org. I’ll be presenting Eastern Brook Trout at the TU Naugatuck Pomperaug meeting on Wednesday, October 1. You can find directions at tunaugpomp.org.

I also see currentseams is approaching 200 members. I think we’ll have to do another fly drawing to celebrate.

We’re not quite yet to this point. But make no mistake — fall is here.

Leaf 10:13