New Year's Day 2017

Like last year I spent the first day of this year fishing a great stream with a great group of friends. Of course some excellent lunch provided by Alan and Mark and his wife helped, as did the coffee, donuts, and beverages supplied by Kirk and John.

We started the fishing today before everyone had arrived. After gearing up, chatting, and watching a couple interesting fly tying videos Kirk and Alan headed downstream and John and I went up. I was hell bent on getting month 23 of my dry fly quest out of the way, so I stuck with dry flies as much as I could and I suspect that hurt my fish catching today. But in the end I did succeed in fooling a brookie. More about that later...

After poking around for a little while without any signs of life John got a phone call... Pete had arrived. We walked up to the parking lot to meet him. We chatted and walked down to one of his favorite spots on the stream, a place we have begun to call "Pete's Hemlock". The spot has changed since last year but it is still worth a try.

We found a couple rising fish near that spot, but unfortunately in this slow flat water they are easily put down. We worked a few other good spots before Pete had to leave. We chatted about some of our favorite spots on the Farmington River while walking back to the parking lot where lunch was about to occur. Soon everyone was back and we enjoyed soup and chili. Then we were back on the water looking for more fish.

Once again John and I were stubborn and went upstream, only to hear when we got back that the other three anglers had caught some nice fish. But our efforts were rewarded with fish coming to the surface! John's ate a small hornberg sitting on its side. A strangely effective method. Mine fell for big river hatch tactics: a size 22 Syl's Midge on 7x tippet cast to a steady riser. The fish that took that tiny fly was a dark little specimen, and though I never touched it I didn't have to. That's 23 months in a row now. A solid two year streak is seeming more and more likely! 

And eventually it was time to go, the sun was falling in the sky. We discussed future plans then said our goodbyes.

This is truly the right way to start a new year!

(Photo courtesy Alan Petrucci)