The First Farmington Run of Spring

I've already been to the Farmington a few times this year, and so far it has been fairly productive. Yesterday was quite good. I was hoping for a 20 incher at some point but, though we got close, it never happened. Rik and I started early and were on the Church Pool before anyone else, not the most common thing on a nice warm day. It took me two casts for the top fly of my two nymph rig, an Ausable Ugly, got munched by a decent holdover brown.It fought well despite having a large chunk of its tail missing!

After a few missed takes and not much else we moved up to another spot. There I was on a roll, missing fish left and right. It was ridiculous. My hooks were sharp, I was setting downstream; I should have stuck all of those fish. Eventually I did, another holdover. This time it was a spastic little rainbow.

A little while later I completed the trout slam with a wild brookie. I'm pretty sure it took the fly because I got a good strong take but it came up hooked in the pectoral fin. I flicked the hook out and let it swim without taking a photo. A bunch of fresh stocked browns later I hooked into a photo worthy fish, a really solid rainbow that jumped four times and did a couple long runs.

I eventually got tired of the nymphs and indicator, and after a good fish came up and ate my bright orange indicator I figured a big gaudy dry would work. On went a chartreuse stimulator, and after a little while it was taken.

We decided to go deep into the C&R section hoping for some bigger fish and hopefully some wild fish. I had already caught the trout slam, so I wanted a fly slam to and thus broke out the streamer rod. The action was far from fast but I managed quite a decent brown on a Maraceiver.

With the water and air warming up bugs were starting to show. First came the midges. Then, about an hour later when the sun came out stoneflies began an egg laying flight. For about 45 minutes before we had to leave Rik and I got to see some explosive rises and good dry fly action. Some fat browns to end the day...

Hard to complain after an outing like that!