A Panfish Trifecta and Ditch Sunnies

Another strange December day. I fished the same mill pond that has been producing fish lately. I tied on a white sea run brown trout streamer and ripped it along the bank with quick short strips. That produced a crappie and a yellow perch. I haven't caught yellow perch out of this pond before, only small white perch. The crappie, though small, was tremendously beautiful.

After the streamer stopped getting hits I tied on a soft hackle. That produced a number of redbreast sunfish and a really small crappie. Small fish are very often gorgeous animals, and this micro crappie was no exception

I decided for no particular reason to try this, well, ditch drainage on the way home. I've caught some pretty surprising things out of storm drains and ditches, and this one happened to be loaded with sunfish.

Fog, Panfish, and Bass

It was warm and foggy today. I love the fog, and the fish are loving this warmth. The warm water fish have been more active over the past couple days than they were throughout much of late November. Crazy. I hit three different ponds. It was typical, if that can be said about doing this type of year. I found some chunky redbreast sunfish in one pocket in the first pond, caught nothing in the second, and battled very spastic little largemouth bass. Crazy.

The Trout Slam with BRK TRT

This morning Alan Petrucci and I visited my favorite brook trout stream. It is another gorgeous day in the upper 50's/low 60's and the small brook trout, of which there are many, were rising. I caught a couple on small dry flies, but for me the Crazy Shrimp was the hot fly, It took a number of stunning but small native brookies.

The brookies didn't really show off today, I normally catch one or two in the 7 to 8 inch range here. Today they were all tiny. But that's fine, they were pretty as can be.

These pools and riffles have trout in them. The people that live around this stream probably don't even know it. It is a perfect and healthy brook trout stream.

After leaving the brook trout stream we went to some wild brown trout water. The DEEP says they don't stock this water any more, but they must because it was loaded with stockers today. I have fished it often and never caught or seen a stocker. These rainbows and browns were all over an Ausable Ugly.

This little brown completed my trout slam.

On my way back upstream to meet Alan to head home I passed a farm pond. I spotted a couple of big bluegills, then a chunky largemouth. I couldn't resist. I twitched the Ugly in its face and SLURP! After a significant battle a solid December Largemouth came to hand.

I always enjoy fishing with friends, it was a great day for it. Thanks, Alan!

Killing The Farmington One Fish Curse

Since June I have been plagued by a curse. It was a curse that prevented me from getting more than one fish each time I visited the Farmington. Today I killed that, although it look for a while like I wasn't going to. It also looked like my fishing partner was going to skunk out until he hooked a stunner last minute.

We got on the river at about 9:00. It was just bellow 40 degrees, a bit misty, and dewy. It began to warm up immediately. I committed myself to fishing small streamers (by comparison to my normal chosen sizes) and with a much slower an deeper retrieve. In the first spot I moved a couple of fish in the pockets and slicks, then had a big brown eat my white rabbit strip leach. I set far too hard and it didn't come back. But in a side slough I hit a slick behind an overhanging tree just right and a gorgeous brown came out and was hooked. As soon as it came tight this fish lost it's mind! I swear it spent more time in the air than in the water, flying all over the pool like a maniac. Reluctantly it came to hand; a solid wild brown with plenty of girth and enough length to make it the second best wild brown of the year, the best being 20 inches, so as you can see not a stellar year in the brown trout department.

We covered a ton more water during the short amount of daylight we had. Much of it produced nothing. I snuck one little brownie out of a tributary. We had a very enjoyable chat with a pheasant hunter (should have asked for some feathers) and his beautiful old dog. 

Eventually we were back where we started. The fish just seemed to be on there, and it didn't take long for one of the browns I had moved in the morning to smash my black woolly bugger. It was even bigger than the first, just as perfect, and stunningly leopard spotted. I love wild brown trout! 

David ended the day on a high note, with a powerful and stunning 17 inch wild brown on a streamer. He took a couple pictures so I could see it (he is not a fish photo taker) and it was an awesome specimen. 

VICTORY!

As many of you CT fisherman know our governor keeps on getting the rather dumb idea to close down a hatchery in his yearly budget plan. For a number of years now we have all needed to speek up to save one of the hatcheries. This year we saved every one of CT's fish hatcheries. Anyone that wrote, called, emailed, or signed the petition should be proud of themselves, because we all just saved the state of Connecticut.

This brings up an important question: what would it be like without the hatcheries? As a wild trout advocate I know the damage that stocking can do in some areas. Look at Montana. It's a world class fishery devoid of truck riding and tank scrubbing trout. But CT is a slightly different story. It is a very populated area. If we got rid of every stocked trout, the boneheaded and ignorant methods of some fisherman would be focused entirely on our wild fish. You've all seen the line, the power bait cans, the rusty hooks left stream side in the heavily stocked areas. How would you like that in your secret wild brown trout hole?

Need I say more?