The Hike In

 Scraggly, low hanging clouds concealed the higher hills on one late September day in the Green mountains. Moisture clung to every surface as dainty glass like droplets, slowly gathering and gaining size as they combined with others before splattering to the forest floor. The sound of the drops permeated the forest. Indeed it was just about the only noise, though a soft and calming one. At the time, Garth and I may not have been able to enjoy it much at all. It reflected our own damp state in the moment. Both of us possessed waders with inconsiderate holes in them that slowly turned any dry pants or socks we layered underneath them into soggy, unpleasant garments. We both complained vocally as we inserted a leg at a time into our damp waders one last time for this trip. We had a walk ahead of us though, and we'd need to suck it up and bear it. 

The woods still very much gave these hills their name, and it was made all the more fresh by the dew... green was everywhere. Moss, ferns, hemlock, maple, birch... the forest couldn't have felt more alive. It was early fall though and little touches of other color were scattered throughout our view. Some trees were beginning to turn;l branches here and there adorned with yellow, orange, or red. Taking advantage of the misty rain, the terrestrial form of the eastern newt moved about on the forest floor. These vibrant little creatures stand starkly against their other amphibian relatives in the same environment, bright orange and red rather than brown, grey, green, or black. They moved with purpose. Each seemed to have a place to be, and though even something as minimal as an oak leaf acted as a massive impasse to these little animals they traversed them with unwavering determination.  

Our walk was significant too, though our purpose was certainly different from the efts. This was our twisted form of leisure... not really relaxing or even comfortable by the standards of the modern middle class vacation. We were wet, tired, and mentally drained, but adamant on making the most of our last hours in Vermont. We treated our pleasure more like business. And in many ways it was... work like, that is. We were certainly not hear to earn a wage. But we had goals and effort must be expended to reach those goals. The first and not least of which was simply getting to our stream of choice. 

As we began our walk, the sound of dripping water gave way to rushing and tumbling as we approached the first of two foot bridges. The river below tumbled over pale granite boulders creating a long stretch of pocket water. We already knew there wasn't much to off in that lightly tannic water, though in my younger days I'd have wasted time fishing that very sterile water. We were going elsewhere, a tributary with colder and more consistent flows and a series of old beaver meadows that lent nutrients to the stream in a way that bare granite never could. 

Days before I'd been sitting in front of a screen, looking at this same landscape in a disconnected fashion. In the blue light before me, an array of pixels depicted imagery gathered by a satellite. I studied the course of the river from above, trying to read its bends and contours, to get an idea of what it might look like in person. I'd grown good at this over the years; learning to read satellite imagery and topographic maps and what they had to tell me about where fish might be. A particular stretch of river, sinuous and coming in and out of a number of meadows, stuck out to me. It was well away from any road in an area I had little knowledge of. In my lap lay an open atlas, a forgotten tool for many a young angler. It was already dotted with marker and pencil, denoting places I'd been, places I wanted to go, and notes. My gaze shifted between my laptop and my Atlas, and I jotted down notes and added new pinpoints. I wasn't sure how cell service would be where we were going, so I wanted an analogue backup. Though it didn't end up being necessary this part of the process still had its benefits. It forced me to take a closer look. When we ended up there, on the ground, though my phone would have and did function as a source for direction and information, I had in the back of my head a picture of where we were and what we should do. 

Leaving the bridge, out path jogged to the east and up hill. The hemlock darkened this area and gave it a primordial feel which was further exaggerated by the return of the dripping noise as the river's loud sound faded behind us. The trail was crossed by uneven, moss covered roots. It was the kind of woods that smell fresh and alive and where one can picture some long though extinct animal traipsing out of the shadows and into reality. In fact, other than the little efts and the odd bird and red squirrel, we saw very little in the way of animals at all. Certainly nothing large or unusual. But it sure did feel like we could. We moved swiftly through down the trail, the sense of passing time pushing us forward. In a short time we came to the bridge crossing our stream. I knew we'd need to follow its course upstream to reach the stretch I really wanted to fish, but I wasn't sure there'd actually be a trail. There was. We followed it for about a mile, it's tunnel-like passage through the undergrowth taking us closer and closer to our goal. Though our hike from the gravel road had not been a particularly long one, we were pretty far from anything. There was no road noise, no other cars in the pull-off, nobody already in the river, and nobody hiking on that trail. Our intrusion was the only human one this day in this place. 

I paused eventually, noting that the sound of tumbling water had calmed and dense forest had been replaced with open, grassy areas to our left. This was our cue to leave the beaten path. We dropped into the river's narrow valley, where little braids coursed like veins through the thick tufts of grass, and made our way to the main artery. The river itself flowed dark and cold, and we didn't know for sure what we'd find as we worked its runs and pools. Garth went down, I went up. Both of us were keen to find out what we'd made that walk for. 

Thank you to my Patrons; Erin, David, John, Elizabeth, Brandon, Christopher, Shawn, Mike, Sara, Franky, Geof, Luke, Noah, Justin, Sean, Tom, Mark, Jake, Chris, Oliver, and oddity on Display for making Connecticut Fly Angler possible. If you want to support this blog, look for the Patreon link at the top of the right side-bar in web version.

Autumn Char Stalking

 I was sitting on my tailgate peeling off wet waders when a local stopped with his window rolled down and asked "how'd you do?"

"Just got here" I replied. 

Seeing that I was clearly removing waders that had very recently been fished in, he gave me a sideways look before moving on. He probably thought I was being an asshole, but I wasn't lying. I'd left my waders on while driving between streams and really had no need for them here. More and more these days I enjoy fishing a small brook trout streams in just my boots and jeans. I don't feel that tromping through the water is in the best interest of the fish, especially between late October and mid March when the next generation of char are still growing in the gravel. But I've also come to relish the challenge of getting into position without getting my feet wet. Wading up the middle of these tiny streams is a short-cut that keeps me from learning important skills, be it casting, stalking techniques, or just the skill of sitting and watching, either unnoticed by my query or just still for long enough that they'd forgotten I was there. 

Brook trout get to be their most spectacular in autumn, and that revolves around their spawn. The males are particularly stunning, and to me it has nothing to do with elegance. Late winter, spring, and summer brook trout are elegant. In the fall these char ugly up, especially the males. They turn into little demons with dark bellies and mouths, red fins and lower flanks, big teeth, and bad attitude. I personally find it spectacular when fish ugly-up, regardless of the reason. Most fish ugly-up to spawn, especially the males, and to me that's often when they look really really cool. I was sneaking around this stream where the fish had probably just quit spawning a week or two prior hoping to find some gnarly looking males. It isn't that hard to find those guys, they're trying to bulk back up for winter. 

Appropriately, I caught the first dozen fish this day on the Ausable Ugly. Ugly eats ugly, I suppose. After a spell the urge to use something a tiny bit more elegant arose. I switched Adirondack tyers from Garfield to Betters, and though Betters' style could perhaps best be described as messy, the Ausable Bomber is a lovely little fly. It ended up taking the best fish of the day.

Noah and I were talking a little while ago about just how large brook trout's mouths are. This is no more evident than in the late fall when most of the fish's mouths are enlarged for the purpose of biting each other. An 8 inch male brookie might have a mouth the same size as a foot long smallmouth bass, loaded with much larger teeth. Those large mouths can fit a lot of food, too. Autumn char really are aggressive little eating machines at their most impressive.

Until next time, 

Fish for the love of fish.

Fish for the love of places fish live.

Fish for you.

And stay safe and healthy.

Thank you to my Patrons; Erin, David, John, Elizabeth, Brandon, Christopher, Shawn, Mike, Sara, Leo, C, Franky, Geof, Luke, Streamer Swinger, and Noah for making Connecticut Fly Angler possible. If you want to support this blog, look for the Patreon link at the top of the right side-bar in web version.

Specks

 In Southern Appalachia, the char that dwell in cold mountain streams are called "specks," short for speckled trout. These are the very same char that inhabit both lowland and upland streams here in New England; our regional name is, more often, "brookie," short for brook trout. I think both are fairly appropriate. They certainly aptly describe the fish. One merely describes where it lives, the other what it looks like. In Latin the species is Salvelinus fontinalis, loosely meaning "char living in springs." Frankly, no name can fully describe this fish. 

I payed a visit to a spring not long ago where these speckled salmonids swim. It was an unplanned trip, I just found myself an hour early to meet a friend and right next to a familiar little stream. And of course I always have a rod in the vehicle, so all I needed to do was pull it out and tie on one of the Ausable Bombers that lives on the brim of my hat. Specks are simple creatures and don't demand expensive gear or complex presentations most of the time. A calculated approach is necessary, but usually only because of the environment. Open casting windows are a luxury. 

I walked until I saw a rise. I may have caught a dozen fish trying to get that riser before I actually got the fly to drift over it though. These fish can't let a meal pass. They live in an environment where caloric intake is both difficult and necessary. 

Eventually I  got my fly through the hidden fish and to the one that was actually rising... it was much smaller than the others! Downstream, though, I found a nice one feeding in a shallow riffle.

As we slide into summer, though today definitely doesn't feel like it, these fish will be at their most aggressive. I feel its important to note, however, that they act this way because they are fighting to survive. We as anglers should be aware of that. We shouldn't over-indulge. I'm learning to be satisfied with fewer fish to hand. Respect the specks. 

Until next time, 

Fish for the love of fish.

Fish for the love of places fish live.

Fish for you.

And stay safe and healthy.

Thank you to my Patrons; Erin, David, John, Elizabeth, Brandon, Christopher, Shawn, Mike, Sara, Leo, C, Franky, Geof, Luke, and Noah for making Connecticut Fly Angler possible. If you want to support this blog, look for the Patreon link at the top of the right side-bar in web version. 

Edited by Cheyenne Terrien

The Secret Valley

 A small stream like many others flows off of a particular hill in central CT. It is a stream I've been visiting for years, and it's one of my favorites. Moss-covered granite bedrock and healthy hemlocks give the stream a very ancient feel. It also looks very wild. This is, however, an illusion. Both ridges above the stream are deforested with housing developments on them. The headwaters emanate from within a farm. The sharp topography of the valley cut by the creek is the only thing hat stopped it, too, from becoming heavily developed. The whole area the stream flows through is but a shadow of what it had once been. Atlantic salmon no longer spawn in the river the small stream flows into. The timber rattlesnake dens to its south were extirpated before any regard for the importance of the species was realized. But a sensitive native species still swims in the stream, if only for now.

Native brook trout eek out a meager existence in the secret valley, under the siege of low water conditions every summer and fall as well as whatever chemicals run off from the farmland. Some manage to get quite large here: one 11 inch specimen caught by my father springs to mind. However most remain under 7 inches, feeding on what little insect life there is in the very sterile stream habitat.

On a recent visit to the Valley, I found its resident brookies both abundant and willing. Sometimes this stream is very stingy, this was no such a day. No fewer than a dozen brook trout came to hand under those dark hemlocks. A few of them were caught on the dry. In one foam-filled eddy I caught no fewer than four brook trout consecutively.

Though that day was certainly an exceptionally productive one, I still couldn't help but worry about my little brook. It had clearly changed quite a bit and some of the holes were now shallower. To worsen things, a new development has gone in. Any development draws water from the aquifer and makes the impacts of a drought much more severe. When I'm older, will there still be brook trout here? I fear they could be snuffed out if "progress" continues. It certainly won't be intentional, like the rattlesnakes that were killed with pitch forks and dynamite. Nobody is scared of brook trout, and I doubt anyone wants to extirpate them. People either just aren't aware or don't care one way or the other. This is the sad reality of the battle to protect wild things. It is difficult to get the word to everybody, and of those that hear only a handful will care and even fewer will take action.

Until next time, 

Fish for the love of fish.

Fish for the love of places fish live.

Fish for you.

And stay safe and healthy.

Thank you to my Patrons; Erin, David, John, Elizabeth, Brandon, Christopher, Shawn, Mike, Sara, Leo, C, Franky, Geof, Luke, and Noah for making Connecticut Fly Angler possible. If you want to support this blog, look for the Patreon link at the top of the right side-bar in web version. 

Edited by Cheyenne Terrien

One Exceptional Brookie

 My partner Cheyenne and I went for a hike one day, and nearby the trail we walked was a lovely little stream. I'd fished other sections of it and had caught a few fish. However, I hadn't explored this section nor investigated any of the stream thoroughly. I knew it had both wild brook trout and wild brown trout. Much of it was on state land, as well. It was a prime location for some more careful examination. The short section we saw was shaded with hemlocks and laurels. The stream meandered through the woods, with tight curves creating deep water. Gravelly riffles made for excellent spawning habitat. I was confident there'd be salmonids here and I was sure brookies would be the dominant species. I fished it briefly that day but didn't catch anything. 

I returned the very next day. The water had fallen a bit and I didn't have much time but I was determined to get just one fish before I had to leave. I was wader-less, not needing or wanting to disturb a stream bed likely to contain concealed redds full of developing brook trout fry. I negotiated the brush and made bow and arrow casts, drifting and twitching an Ausable Bomber through likely water. 

I covered quite a bit, and only spooked one small fish when I started to feel my time was running out. I came to a slick bend flat, not deep but still the sort of water brook trout use in the winter. I got down in a crouch and into casting position. A careful bow and arrow cast put the bomber in the fastest current and I fed line to drift the fly down the flat. When it reached where the current met the bank I twitched my rod tip and drowned the fly. I then began slowly stripping the fly upstream. This was greeted a few strips in by a boil and a jarring pull. I set the hook and a brookie of exciting size broke the surface. Soon at hand was a fish that gave me the adrenaline rush I'd really been needing. He was a stunner. Not every wild brook trout is created equally, and this one was a special individual. 

Having accomplished more than I'd expected, and just in the nick of time, I headed back to the car. I was grinning ear to ear. I could have skipped the whole way, I was so pleased. Some fish tickle me a little more than others. That one was exceptional. An extraordinary native char from a beautiful and delicate habitat. This is one of the fish I've sworn to protect and will fight for until my last breath. 

Until next time, 

Fish for the love of fish.

Fish for the love of places fish live.

Fish for you.

And stay safe and healthy.

Thank you to my Patrons; Erin, David, John, Elizabeth, Brandon, Christopher, Shawn, Mike, Sara, Leo, C, Franky, and Geof for making Connecticut Fly Angler possible. If you want to support this blog, look for the Patreon link at the top of the right side-bar in web version. 

Edited by Cheyenne Terrien

The Ausable Flies Strike Again

 Throughout all my years of brook trout fishing, one fly reigns supreme. Fran Betters came up with something extraordinary when he created the Ausable Bomber. It has resulted more brook trout to hand for me than any other single fly pattern. I've taken trout on the bomber, fished upstream and down, skated and dead drifted, swung and bounced, dry and subsurface, to actively rising fish and prospecting pocket water... there is little this fly can't do. This broad range of uses is something I look for in most flies. Very little I carry is actually single use. I fish for so many species in so many situations I'd have far too many flies if each only served one purpose. And as such, the Bomber with it's many uses has more than earned its place in my arsenal. 

One day in December, I was on a morning mission to get my monthly dry fly salmomid, and of course the bomber was the first fly I chose to tie on. The stream I was fishing was a low-gradient river valley stream, running a substrate of brownstone, conglomerate, and alluvial gravel beds. Streams like these are nutrient rich and hold water well, often producing brook trout either of large size or in exceptional numbers -and sometimes both. This particular stream has been more numbers prolific than size for me, and is also a winter dry fly paradise. The fish are very surface oriented, abundant, and spurred on by caddis and midge hatches. 

The first run I fished was a shallow gravel train that typically either holds one nice fish or a half dozen tiny ones. Today it was tiny ones, and they could only drown the fly and failed to get the hook point. A few bends down however the water swept around a corner, creating a nice cut bank bend. There are nearly always fish holding in water of this sort, the question was simply whether they'd rise to a dry. I let the Bomber drift, then gave in a twitch where the V of in flowing currents came to a point. Up came a brook trout and I stuck her. December had been beaten. 

The Bomber brought a few more fish to hand that day, including the regal specimen below. 

But when I came to an especially deep hole with heavy current, I knew I wanted to get down deep to catch whatever was hiding there. On went another fly of Adirondack lineage, though of a more recent generation of fly tyer than Betters: Rich Garfield's Ausable Ugly. Like Betters, Garfield has designed a handful of flies that are unusual, unruly looking, and extremely effective. There's little you can't do with an Ausable Ugly. I made a tuck cast then slowly dropped my rod as the current carried the fly down, keeping in contact but also allowing it to fall. As the Ugly rolled into the depths of the pool, I felt a grab. It was a long female brook trout, all her weight was in her stomach. She'd used much of her fat reserves to spawn, most likely. Brook trout in this shape aren't uncommon in the early winter, as they've just begun to regain weight after the spawn.

Satisfied with that small number of trout landed, I called it a day. The Ausable flies had done the trick. 

Until next time, 

Fish for the love of fish.

Fish for the love of places fish live.

Fish for you.

And stay safe and healthy.

Thank you to my Patrons; Erin, David, John, Elizabeth, Brandon, Christopher, Shawn, Mike, Sara, Leo, C, Franky, and Geof for making Connecticut Fly Angler possible. If you want to support this blog, look for the Patreon link at the top of the right side-bar in web version. 

Edited by Cheyenne Terrien

One And Done: A Whole Season

I slid down a steep hillside feet first, on my butt, using saplings to slow my descent, 3wt in hand bouncing perilously. I'd done this and worse before countless times and never broken a rod... so whatever it takes to get to the stream is what I do. It had been a little while since I slid down this particular hill or any other hill down to a brook trout stream. Though the chaotic spring corona virus crowds had subsided and I was no longer quite so worried about small lesser known streams being over-pressured, we are in a drought here in CT. A bad one. So I again had reason to stay away. But I can't always. So, this was my first and only local summertime brookie trip. 

Some might say I've drifted away from my beloved brook trout over the last few years, and this could be true. I've fished for them much, much less than I used to. This has more to do with balancing my need to catch brook trout with their need to be left alone. I've fished most of my local waters long enough to know what they hold and how to get a few fish any time I go. I just don't feel the need to fish them as often as I once did. The fish are better off without me bothering them. That said, these fish also go unnoticed by most, and it isn't bad to have someone that cares checking up on things. After I got up and wiped the dirt and bits of leaves off my legs and shorts, I pulled out my pocket thermometer and placed in the run I stood looking over. The flow was low, but not severely. It had rained just days prior though. I contemplated how warm the water might be. I'd never documented a temperature over 65 in this stream but if it was over 62 I would not make a single cast. I picked up the thermometer. 60 degrees.

I dressed the bomber, then slowly crawled into position behind a boulder. Just upstream was an inconspicuous pocket that some might completely ignore. I knew, however, that it rarely failed to hold a fish in late spring into late summer. This day proved no exception.

One fish to hand, a typically bejeweled wild char. A Connecticut native. I put the bomber in the hook keeper and left, whistling and smiling. Beautiful fish... I hope she survives the drought. 

 Until next time,

Fish for the love of fish.
Fish for the love of places fish live.
Fish for you.
And stay safe and healthy.

Thank you to my Patrons; Erin, David, John, Elizabeth, Brandon, Christopher, Shawn, Mike, Sara, Leo, and Franky for supporting this blog on Patreon.

Sprung, Spring Has

The governor said we could fish... so I did.
Of course, I would have anyway, but my choice of waters was increased substantially. Now I could finally legally hit some places I'd never gotten to in late March before, brook trout water I knew would be fishing well but had to stay off of through the closed season. Come the week following opening day I'd fished these places and the fatness of the brook trout I caught lead me to believe something spectacular had been going on before I could get there.

The late winter, early spring stonefly emergence probably peaks during closed season. It's the first notable dry fly fishing of the year but only available on limited TMA and Class 1 WTMA streams. Not this year.

I chose a cluster of three similarly sized streams in close proximity. Each one has a slightly different character, but share the same bedrock, the same mix of macroinvertebrates, and the brook trout look pretty much the same. Very dark, typically. Shortly after hiking into the first the clouds of midges, stoneflies fluttering on the surface, and frequent rises told me I was in for a good afternoon. 

I put the Ausable Bomber to work. Frankly, I'm not sure why my small stream box isn't filled with only five flies: The Bomber, foam beetles, the Ausable Ugly, and Picket Pins, because that's about all I've ever needed. The bomber would take any riser I presented it to this day were it cast tactfully and from an obscured position.

With so many rising fish, I took the time on a few occasions to simply sit back, relax, and watch them do their thing. I even took the time to sneak around them so as not to put them off the feed. For a couple stretches of creek I was simply an observer with no intention of intervening at all. This is something I personally believe more fisherman should try to do more often.

I didn't need to cast at every rise, I knew there's be plenty more fish. There always are, on days like this.

After a dozen fish to hand I decided to move on to the next stream. I elected to fish a stretch I never had before, a bit I knew had a beaver meadow that looked great on the maps. I caught a few brook trout before I reached it, but the abundant dimples and wide open casting lanes when I did reach the meadow made me grin ear to ear. Oh, and add a sixth to my fly box, the Sturdy's Fancy did the job on these small but splendidly dressed native char. Blue winged olives joined the midges and stones here. Sprung, spring has.

The beaver meadow yielded a half dozen fish, one much larger than the youngster you see above,. but that little fish was far better looking. Simple maybe, compared to some rook trout. But quite lovely.

As the sun crept lower I made tracks to the third stream before I lost daylight. There, I tied on the Ausable ugly just for a change of pace. Dangled the buggy nymph/small streamer in the current and waited to feel the thump of a hungry brookie. I didn't have to wait long. Another dark wild fish danced on the surface as I guided it in my direction with the rod. I talked to it as I landed it.
"Do you know how happy you make me? Of course you don't, you're just fighting for your life here."
Barely lifting the six inch fish from the water, I turned the hook and gave it a little shake. "Lucky for you, I'll fight for your life too", I said, watching him quickly swim away.

A second and final fish fell to the Ugly before I called it a day.

Keep in mind, with this open season and the extra free time we've been forced to have, that it is possible to pressure fish too much. That is a concern I have for the duration of this pandemic. Please take this into consideration. Spread your fishing pressure out as much as possible, both to keep crowds to a minimum and to prevent undue pressure to sensitive fisheries.

Until next time,

Fish for the love of fish.

Fish for the love of places fish live.

Fish for you.

And stay safe and healthy.

Thank you to my Patrons; Erin, David, John, Elizabeth, Brandon, Christopher, Shawn, Mike, Sara, Leo, and Franky for supporting this blog on Patreon.

Something Very Special

If you enjoy what I'm doing here, please share and comment. It is increasingly difficult to maintain this blog under dwindling readership. What best keeps me going so is knowing that I am engaging people and getting them interested in different aspects of fly fishing, the natural world, and art. Follow, like on Facebook, share wherever, comment wherever. Also, consider supporting me on Patreon (link at the top of the bar to the right of your screen, on web version). Every little bit is appreciated! Thank you to my Patrons; Erin, David, john, and Christopher, for supporting this blog.

This spring has been something very special. This has been the second very wet year in a row, and despite stream temperatures getting warm fairly early in Southern and Eastern CT last year, spring seeps remained very safe refuges throughout that period. Frequent high water but only brief periods of truly serious floods also means lots of food in the drift, and I have no doubt that if the necessary data were collected, it would show a massive bump in the growth rate of small stream wild trout over these last two seasons. I'm so sure of this because I've not seen such good small stream fishing for a long time. 

On Friday I fished a stream that I'd not been to in a while. The last time I'd fished it I caught a number of sizable browns, but nothing really remarkable for the size of stream they were in, and one small hunchback brook trout. This time was very different. 

Within minutes I got a quite substantial wild brookie. The same big hole then produced four more wild brook trout, two stocked brookies and two stocked browns which had come up from the stocked stream below, and four fallfish. That was a pretty impressive tally for one hole of a thin blue line. What's more, only one of the four wild brook trout was under 10 inches long.

Working upstream from there, I consistently found at least one brook trout in each pool and run, and most were 10-12 inches. Where I'd found maybe one brown trout the last time I'd fished here, this time I was finding two or three brookies, and man were they ever stunning. Big spots and lots of them, and incredibly pronounced marbling on the back. Really incredible looking fish.

With the water high and off-color, I didn't give much though to dries until I reached the long flat you see above. Normally I wouldn't expect to find salmonids in this kind of water, aside from fry and fingerlings. it was shallow, slow, and provided very little cover. But I saw some rises, so I fished it. I found a skated bomber to be the ticket. It drew some really violent strikes.

Eventually I did find a couple wild browns. The first was small in stature, but the second was an impressive specimen of 14 inches, and about as buttery yellow as a brown trout gets.

This glorious outing stacks up with three others I'd had this week, full of "big for the water" wild trout. I will write about one or two of those outings, but if you want to read them, I'm sorry to say they won't be here. (shameles plug in 3... 2... 1...) 
They'll be on my Patreon page (www.patreon.com/ctflyangler), only accessible to patrons, along with a few other benefits that you can get if you are generous enough to support Connecticut Fly Angler. It would be especially helpful now, as my beloved little Sony DSC-RX100 has been died a very slow death and is no longer usable, so I'm back to using the old "brick",  the Fujifilm HS 50 exr, which has some serious issues of its own, and my phone camera, which... is a phone camera. So I really am in need of some new camera gear. I'm extremely limited in what I can do right now. Check my page out, if you please.

The Best Small Stream Spring

This spring has been something special. There are a few areas in which the conditions have given me the short end of the stick, my home river for one, where the high water both suppressed the rise activity and made covering water effectively difficult. But other small streams are fishing as well or better than I've ever seen. 

On Sunday, I visited a small southern CT stream that has been a favorite of mine since Alan Petrucci showed it to me a number of years ago. I visited it a couple times this winter and did not do well. But I was determined to fish it during prime dry fly time this spring, and I had a good feeling about my chances. This stream and it's tributaries have produced some of mine, Alan's, and Kirk's biggest CT brook trout. 

I found it in fine form Sunday morning, water barely touching 60 degrees, and at a perfect flow. I saw a riser within minutes of getting within sight of the water. I tied on a rig one can hardly go wrong with: an Ausable Bomber above a beadhead Soft Hackled Hare's Ear. 

It took but a few casts before the bomber plunged under, and I soon had a ten inch wild char at hand. The very next cast had much the same result.

And it didn't take long to find one willing to take the dry, either. Oh yes, this was to be a glorious day.

Spiderwebs hanging over the river were loaded with mayflies. Sulfurs, light cahills, vitreous, and march browns were most abundant.

This fine specimen was to be my biggest of the day. The photo does a poor job of demonstrating this handsome male's true stature. This was a large fish for a CT small stream, though not the biggest I would see today.

In one large bend pool who's depths reach about four and a half feet, I planted my flies in a bush that hangs over. Carefully wading out to retrieve them, I saw an absolute behemoth of a brookie, a fish that was 18 inches at the smallest and probably three pounds. It was an astonishing sight, even though I knew this stream had potential to produce such a fish. Believe it or not I didn't feel the need to catch it at that moment, and I haven't thought about it much since. I may go after it, I may not.

I was retracing my own steps and catching the fish I'd missed on the way up when i hear a familiar voice. I looked up to see Alan approaching. He'd been having a great morning too. We chatted for a bit and continued our own ways.

This spring truly has been exceptional in a number of ways. With nights remaining fairly cool I foresee a decent early summer as well, especially if we continue to receive rain.

The only fry fly one must have if they seek wild brook trout. 

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