New Year's Day 2023

 It's another year. 2022 was, well, it was an odd one for me. Like a roller coaster would be an apt description. The highs were really high, the lows were really low, and the drops happened so damned fast it made my head spin. The last day of the year was a pleasant one. I had a client in the morning- one of my regulars, Mike -and it was a great trip. The weather was very mild and the trout obliged. After that I went and relaxed with some friends, seeing the year out relaxed and happy. 

This is our first New Year's Day without Alan. The small stream crew, no doubt, were all feeling his absence on the 1st. I know I certainly was. John and I had planned to get together and fish. He ended up with vehicle problems, something I'm certainly sympathetic to as my rig insisted on being a problem child this year with a broken axle casing, differential needing a complete overhaul, faulty alternator, and some more minor issues. Luckily it's running nicely at the moment. I had free reign of what stream I could fish on January. I decided to fish a small river valley stream dominated by brown trout, but with a few brookies mixed in as well. The temperatures were mild, the sun was up, and rain the previous night had brought flows to a nice level. 

I really wanted to go light as far as gear. Waders felt unnecessary, I went armed with just a sling pack and good old five weight. On the end of the leader was an Ausable Ugly. The plan was to fish thoughtfully and slowly, and hopefully catch any opportunistic trout I may come across. 

I've found that fishing trout streams without waders forces an angler to be more careful about their approach. Up on the banks, an angler is often a more obvious figure. One must move slower and position themselves more precisely. Waderless fishing made me more aware of putting sight blocks- objects that would obstruct a fish's view in my direction -between myself and the water I was going to fish. This was especially important in my early years as I tended to move quickly. I can remember numerous occasions on which I'd watch Alan get right on top of the water he was going to fish. He wasn't a large man, so simply by moving slowly and not making much commotion he was able to catch fish from close proximity. I had and still do have a hard time with that approach. Instead I get low, even crawl at times, and hide behind things. I fish longer rods and heavier flies a lot, so allowing long downstream drifts into places I can't cast isn't always an option. That was Alan's forte, light soft hackles and long downstream presentations. If he couldn't cast as far as he wanted due to obstructing brush he wasn't bothered. He could just control his line a fly and feed them down-current. I learned to employ this strategy with dry flies and still do that often, but I've yet to fall in love with the dangled wet fly the way many of my small stream friend have. 

On this tiny, brushy stream, my positioning had to be especially precise. I often opted to fish from within thick brush, finding windows to drop or bow-and-arrow cast my fly into runs and pools. If I hooked a fish from these positions it required quick action to get to the water's edge and land it, but I couldn't fish these same places from the edge of the stream anyway without risking spooking the trout. I'd often be reaching over a rod length's worth of bittersweet to drop the Ugly into promising water that I could barely see from my position. It may seem like unnecessary effort when some of the pools between had far easier approaches and casting windows, and maybe some days that's true. But not this January 1st. Each opportunity I got to bring a trout to hand came in one of the tricky pools to fish. 

One particular trout really made my day. It came in a classic "log pool", where the spill over a submerged downed tree gutted out a nice deep hole that featured an eddy on either side. Some activity upriver was churning up the bottom, and though it was settling out by the time the water reached the area I'd started visibility was low all the way up here. Maybe five inches. I made sure to work the pool very thoroughly because of this. Whereas it may only get a half dozen casts under clear water conditions I put about twenty through it this time. The last was greeted with an almighty thump. The fish that was responsible made good account of itself despite the cold water. It was a gaudily colored creature the likes of which one would not likely expect to encounter in a tiny and somewhat urban Connecticut creek. Well Pete and Alan, this one is for you. Happy New Years my friends, we miss you both dearly. 

This New Years Day was a bittersweet one for me. Perhaps it was fitting that I spend much of it crawling through the plant of that name. I really hope 2023 is a good year. I have some hope at the moment. I feel good. 

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