Fly Fishing Evolution

Farmington River Guide Trip

// August 30th, 2010 // No Comments » // Guide Trips

I took off the last month to get ready for the busy fall season. It’s been a while since y last guide trip in Connecticut. I woke up at 4 and headed up there to check things out. A lot has changed there in the last 28 days! Where has the water gone?? The flow was a nice 75 cfs, which was higher than the 60 cfs that it was a few days ago.

The trip was a gift for two brothers who took up fly fishing, but were on the fence about keeping it going due to the lack of success that they were having. I knew that we had to catch them, but in less than 90 cfs that was going to be tough… or was it?

We started nymphing a popular run where we took a small stocked brown trout right away. That was it for a little while. I started to doubt my choice of spots a little. We moved up into the pocket water that leads into the pool and there were… small wild brown trout! I have always had my doubts on whether or not this stream contains wild browns. Now today they were saving the day… unreal! I’ll take that bailout plan every trip. We caught around a half dozen wild fish. With own spirits lifted we headed for spot number two. This was actually where all hell brown lose. We were nymphing with small and by small,  I am talking about size 24 nymphs. We absolutely cleaned up. Mind you these guys have only fly fished a handful of times. They caught more in one hour than they did all of their previous trips combined. Since the water is low I had to spread them apart as there are less spots that hold fish. I was actually getting tired running back and forth between them with the net to unhook fish. Spot 2 also produced a couple of wild trout!

If you want to learn some techniques to catch fish that have been pounded all summer then be sure to book a guide trip on the Farmington River in Connecticut this fall! This is a great opportunity to catch tougher fish on a stream that is usually quite easy.

The Fish of the Summer!

// August 30th, 2010 // No Comments » // Adventures

I have been fly fishing almost every day this summer. I have only missed one day and that was because I was on a plane coming home from Colorado.

I am very fortunate to have it so good. I have the greatest and most rewarding job as an elementary school teacher. I get to fish my ass off almost 250 days a year both guiding and fishing on my own. With all of the fishing that I do there are some days that stand out and last Saturday morning was one of them. I found this large trout about a month ago, but the water went up and I couldn’t get him. However, with the lower water and slightly stained flows I knew that I needed to get there asap to try and catch this fish. When I was in the car driving at 4am there is usually this anxious feeling that I get when going fly fishing. However, this morning was calm. I was unusually relaxed, almost like I knew it was going to happen. I spent a great deal of my time figuring out where this fish would go and how I would get it. Would I indicator nymph or Euro nymph? Would I even get it nymphing at all? Should I dry dropper this guy? I went with the technique that is done the job in the past. I decided to indicator nymph. I rigged up and headed to the stream. On the second cast the indicator disappeared… small rainbow… I was thinking dammit, not I’m not going to get the big fish. I kept fishing. After about an hour I landed 4 smaller browns and another rainbow. I went back to where I started. That’s when it happened. I took a few casts and then, it disappeared. I set the hook and there was some serious thrashing on the end of the line. I saw the fish… It was larger than 265! After about what seemed like an hour, it was lying in the net. The only problem is that no one was there. So I have this picture of it’s head. As you can plainly see, it’s huge. Maybe not 265 big, but as close as you can get. I get the fish free, watched it swim away, walked back to the car and went straight home. I had had enough for one day as my level of contentment was filled!

Before, During and After the Rain…

// August 24th, 2010 // No Comments » // Adventures

I had to go out to Pennsylvania yesterday to pick up some fly tying materials. On the way home I had to stop and fish. Who goes to Pennsylvania without fly fishing??

I stopped at one of the creeks that I fished last week and got in a solid hour and a half before the monsoon. The fishing was awesome before and during the rain and I mean it rained hard. I couldn’t even float my dry fly it was so bad. I think that I was making a cast and  putting it in the dry shaker. After ten minutes of that I called it a day. I fished only one short 100 yard stretch and netted almost 2 dozen wild browns from 6-13 inches.

Today I wanted to get back out there and pick up right where I left off yesterday. I fished through the same water that I fished yesterday and took even more fish. The weather was perfect cloudy, drizzly and cool just the way trout like it.

I fished dry dropper both days. Yesterday no fish took the dry. Today they were all over it. Almost half of the fish took the dry. I have noticed a trend towards more surface feeding fish as of late. The nymph activity must be less than what it was a few weeks ago so the fish have become more opportunistic in their feeding patterns.