Fall Guiding & Updates

 It's been a hot minute since I rolled out one of these. The last one I did was in June? Woooh boy, I'm a mess. But the fishing is pretty good. I guess I'll go over the summer's worth of work. 

Carp, carp, and more carp. Then some more carp. I put a lot of people on carp. Some regulars, some new guys... so many carp. Here's a small selection for you:

Dar's RI fully

Joey's not-a-bowfin

Connor's mop eater

Johny's 22 pounder

JK's dock demon

Hayden's first bubbler

Speaking of carp, if you're a freak for the Cyprinus like I am, it's going to be worth your while to check out United State of Carp. The first issue is soon to come, with an article by yours truly. It'll be a photo heavy publication, well styled as far as I can tell, and I'm looking forward to it and to working with Joel more in the future!

The carp are far from done for the year, of course. If you'd still like to get on some, especially if you'd like to learn late season tactics, there is time... basically until the waters freeze over, there's always a shot. But I'm ecxited for the change of season and the change of target that comes with it. CT's niche stocked salmon season is rapidly approaching. I anticipate DEEP to put the first of the season in very soon, I'd say any dat after October 15 is a guaranteed shot if you'd like to get a day on the calendar now. It'll be walk and wade only for a little while, until the water is up. 

This fall I'm also very keen on stillwater trout trips. This is something I've been doing more and more of myself and with friends, but its hard to convince clients to fish anything but rivers for trout. I find that crazy, honestly. Some of the best big trout fishing in the state currently is on lakes, not rivers. It just takes a fly angler leaving their moving water comfort zone a little bit. The rivers are there too, of course, and the Housatonic, Farmington, and Salmon will all offer great opportunities over the coming months. I've been on a dry fly bender as well, with no intention of letting up. 

As for the salt, at least for me, it's been a hot mess. My fall weakfish bite either didn't happen or just not when I was there. My clients have boated some fluke and had some shots at blitzing bass, some tailing dogfish, and a couple short opportunities at hard tails, but it has been really kicking my teeth in the few chances there've been to get out, for me. 

So, the freshwater fall agenda persists: there is still great carp fishing ahead, there is still great smallmouth bass fishing ahead, and the pike, salmon, and trout offer a plethora of opportunities I am thrilled to offer to my clients! 

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, oddity on Display, Sammy, and Cris & Jennifer, Hunter, Thomas, Trevor, Eric, Evan, Javier, Ryan, Dar, Eric, Collin, and James for making Connecticut Fly Angler possible. If you want to support this blog and access more informative content, look for the Patreon link at the top of the right side-bar in web version!

June Guiding Updates & Patreon Setlist

 May was a productive month with clients with a decent array of variety and some big fish here and there! Of course, it always is, May is one of those months in Connecticut when it is pretty hard to pick what exactly to do any given day, for my own personal fishing. I did no trout trips at all in April but had a few in May, starting with Frank and Brandon. It was a mixed bag day, mostly nymphing, one cool spot and stalk with a dry, and a nice tiger trout on a mouse. Then David and Kalil came down from Massachusetts for a great day with a lot of catching shotgun nymphing the riffles of one of Connecticut's more underrated trout rivers. 

Kalil Boghban Photo

Kalil Boghban Photo

The carp spawned in bursts throughout the month, not always in the same places on the same days. The only time it pretty much screwed me was when I had Tom Cole out, and in unusual form two fish were hooked and lost out of the only feeders we found. Carp don't often come unpinned after they're suck, and I saw that both weren't fouled very early on. At least the fish viewing that day was spectacular, with hundreds upon hundreds of carp of all shapes around us, under us, even splashing us at almost all times.

The next day I had Blake, who coincidentally had a similar situation when he booked me last year, where every hooked fish managed to slip away un-netted. This time was different with multiple large carp and plenty of channel catfish caught. Most exciting, though, was this gorgeous little mirror carp!

Also getting in on the carp success in May was Michael, with his largest freshwater fish on the fly....

... and Dar, with some excellent big lake action.

To keep the variety up, shad were also heavily in the program this May. I love American shad, but for my own devices I'd gladly go make one annual pilgrimage a year for the species. Sometimes clients pull me out for them though, as Jeff and Tony did this year. For two days we slugged it out with rain and cooling temperatures. It was harder work than I like shad fishing to be but fish were caught regardless.

I'm skipping a fair bit, here, so as not to crowd out this post too much, but it was a great month with great clients and lot of good fishing. On to June, which we are now almost halfway into. I'm going to get a little bit personal, now. The start of this month has been a disaster for me. With some very expensive and necessary repair investments done on my generally trusty set of wheels, I promptly got into a car wreck that has left me with both light physical strain, significant mental trauma and stress, and a financial burden that is turning out to be far worse than it even seemed it might be initially. This has left me in a tough place for June. If you are looking to book a trip, please understand that it my take me some effort in scheduling. Walk and wade trips will be much, much easier to accomplish than canoe or raft trips, though I can at least do canoe trips here and there, it'll just take some scheduling and working things around to make sure I can borrow appropriate wheels. Because I am in such a sticky financial situation I very much would appreciate any trips I can get on the books at all, as this is setting me back on a few things I'd intended to do this year, including getting a second raft which would have hugely boosted my ability to furnish fun and exciting float trips. If you can find room in your schedule and any of my normal early summer warmwater fare- (bass, carp, bowfin, catfish) or saltwater species (scup, fluke, blackfish, stripers), as well as wade trips on the Farmington and a handful of other rivers remaining cool enough for trout -appeals to you, I'd be massively appreciative of your booking. I can't promise the easiest scheduling process but will do my absolute best. Thank you for your understanding while I work this out. 

So far this month the fishing has been good and promises to continue being. Some bowfin, catfish, and carp have found their way to the net. I did something I don't usually do much anymore and made some casts at carp one day, resulting in the largest fantail I've ever personally set eyes on. It ate the fly before it made it to the bottom on a fast cruise in clear water. It was a spectacular eat and in many respects on of the best carp I'd ever caught... so no complaints there.

Levi Opsatnic Photo

As for Patreon, we're already on a nice roll this month. Here's the setlist: 

Cow+ Posts: 

Get In Loser, We're Going Gar-ing

Videos: 

Multidisciplinary Smallmouth Nymphing

Casting Under & Into Brush

Weekly Posts:

Surface Analysis

Thing Carp Eat Sometimes

Using Soft Glass to Set Hard

Stand In Cold Water

Quick Tips:

TBD

Walt's Durability

Walt's Profile

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, oddity on Display, Sammy, and Cris & Jennifer, Hunter, Gordon, Thomas, Trevor, Eric, Evan, Javier, Ryan, Dar, Eric, and Collin for making Connecticut Fly Angler possible. If you want to support this blog and access more informative content, look for the Patreon link at the top of the right side-bar in web version!

Spring Highlights, Updates & Guiding Schedule

 This has been quite a whacky, wild, rollercoaster ride of a spring thus far. The weather has been pretty much bananas, with wild temperature swings and swaps back and forth between dry conditions and more normal, wet spring weather as well. The fishing has been more hit than miss, though by my personal standards it has been a bit frustrating. In terms of prolonged flooding, this spring has been a bit of a dud. The Connecticut is still up currently but did not get all that high for all that long. Turns out, and average snowpack in CT, below in most of MA, and average in VT and NH coupled with a quick early melt in March and inconsistent rains in early April do not make for the perfect floodplain season. This doesn't ruin the carp fishing, but it does deprive me of some of my favorite spots for one season. Believe it or not the lack of flooding has bigger ramifications for my early season smallmouth fishing, which was good but not great this year. The bigger impacts on carp fishing quality came from the temperature swings and wind. There were a lot more one and two fish days than I typically like, but my standards for carp fishing are also pretty high anyway. Here are some highlights....

The first properly netted fish (we had one throw the hook and get out an hour prior) of the season was Dar's big and super long barble-d fantail. Not a bad way to start. For a couple weeks he'd be the only one putting fish in the net, including on a couple good high numbers days (9 one day, 7 another.) 

Most difficult conditions bested goes to Ben, he got a modest wind one day then and absolute howler the next with fish in a very neutral mood, but still managed to put good carp in the net. 

 Weirdest catch goes to Dar with a one-eye blind common on his 6th session with me this spring. Again, fish were in a neutral mood this day after a very cold night, it was a tricky bite. 

Mike picked a day perfectly, as the air temperature sky rocketed and fish went into a very aggressive feeding mode, he ended up with a perfect bunch of commons, mostly bubblers. 

The next day Joey stole the title for most fish landed with a perfect dozen, mostly scrappy mid sized commons with one epic little fantail for variety. The fish began early spawning activities that day but most were still feeding. 

Spawning behavior made things trickier for the Idaho guides team of Jack and Luke, but Luke managed his first carp- a beautiful slot machine bubbler fantail -then another perfect common. Jack fooled a fantail on day one and a monster common for the flooded woods on day two. Jack has managed to bring the big fish luck two years in a row, tow commons early in 2025 were some of the biggest floodplain fish I've ever netted and his fish this year was no different. You know they're big when holding them up off your knee makes your arms shake instantly.

As for smallmouth, both Dar and Dave caught their personal biggest with me this season, and Art got the job done with some aggressive chasers. 

My schedule has a few holes I can fill in the coming week or so, the water is still up and the carp are still back in the woods for now. If we get rain enough, this can persist well into May, but that isn't particularly likely this year in my opinion. So we're likely to transition into my typical flats and river edge late spring and summer fishing, which is still very engaging and in my opinion does offer shots at some much larger fish. We're also coming into prime time for post spawn pike, smallmouth streamer trips, and soon enough, bowfin. I've been seeing a few bowfin already but none have stuck around long enough to provide shots. Soon, though, they'll be all sorts of rowdy. Flows remain fairly amicable for trout float trips in the larger rivers and any shots of rain could put the Salmon, Willimantic, and others in play as well. I have to keep a couple fairly large blocks of time open in early May, but I do have availability in the latter half of the month. June only has a handful of booked dates and is primo for anything and everything on the warmwater front as well as Farmington floats when flows allow. Let me know if anything piques your interest! 

brwntroutangler@gmail.com 

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, oddity on Display, Sammy, and Cris & Jennifer, Hunter, Gordon, Thomas, Trevor, Eric, Evan, Javier, Ryan, Dar, Eric, and Collin for making Connecticut Fly Angler possible. If you want to support this blog and access more informative content, look for the Patreon link at the top of the right side-bar in web version!

Ghosts of Winters Past

2025 was a pretty good ice fishing season in Connecticut. 2026, so far, is even better.... the best in recent memory, in fact. Noah, who doesn't work in the winter anymore, has gotten fully ice obsessed, and that has carried along to me. Going from very casually stepping onto local lakes with a spud bar and one jigging rod to fully shanty-d up with heaters, vexilars, specialized rods and even more specialized jigs, and making spring bobbers at home is a bit of a leap. It was any easy leap for me to take. I'm a fly guy in open water virtually everywhere and every time I can be. With almost no exceptions, if I'm making casts with an artificial offering, I'm going to do so with a fly rod and don't care at all to use anything else. That doesn't operate well when the water is frozen. Walking on water is pretty darn fun. Trotting out on the ice nearly daily and even sleeping out on it has got me thinking about the winters that have passed, though. 

I caught my first fish through the ice not that long ago, in early January of 2018. It was a striped bass. Noah and I both got our first that day, actually. They were on handlines. They fought... poorly. 

That winter of 2017-18 was the first time I ever put even a measurable effort into ice fishing, and it wasn't a huge effort. I did give it a go with jigging panfish and bass and started to at least catch fish. That wasn't an exceptional ice winter, but it was good enough. My most significant memories on the ice that involved attempting to get carp through the ice and even losing a set rod to one, and dropping my phone down a hole and managing to grab it as it sank. The open water opportunities were probably markedly better that winter than the ice opportunities, at least given our lack of skill. That skill lack extended beyond just ice fishing though, Noah and I were both very much still in a developing age in our angling careers- not unskilled, per-se, probably better than average, but growing rapidly. We'd just gotten back from our first Florida trip, which opened our eyes in significant ways. 

I'd ice fished prior to 2018, of course, but in an even more disorganized fashion. In 2017 we had a very mild winter that gave no ice. January and February both presented more opportunities at open water bass, sunfish, and carp than they did at ice fishing. 2016 was much the same. In fact, winters like these have been more abundant in the last two decades than winters like the one we're having now. I can recall falling into a pond in early February of 2010 and it being a complete non-issue. 

My friend Rik and I poked around this snowy but open pond one January day in 2017

2014 was a late winter but cold enough and snowy enough to keep me off a lot of water. I don't know that I ice fished at all, my friend Dalton and I may have half-assedly attempted it. I did more snow-shoeing than fishing that winter, especially from February into early March. What I keenly remember was that shelf ice built up significantly. In combination with deep snowpack and the fact that we still had a short closed trout season back then and it made for a very good spring trout season. Fish were hungry, had been unpressured, and flows were fantastic. The hatches were better back then too. 

I believe it was 2013 that I recall struggling to cut through the thick ice on a local lake with a hatchet, and when I finally did it shot through and I lost it.  

In 2020 and 2021, I did a little bit of ice fishing, but not much. In 22 and 23, hardly any at all. I devoted some days in 24 but the window was short. Ice was largely absent each of those years but so was snow, with little in the way of prolonged snow coverage. So far 2025-26 has provided the longest duration of snow coverage locally that I can remember in a long time. What does that all mean, though? I hope this produces a spring trout fishing boom equivalent to 2013 and 14, but the reality is the streams are open to fish the moment they thaw now, and that closed March really was advantageous back when we still had that. Combined with the boom in popularity of two high impact trout methods- Euro nymphing and especially center pinning, now -the fish won't see the benefit of a deep freeze that they used to in conjunction with a chance to settle into early spring without heavy molestation. At the very least, snowpack melting into the ground a steady pace has significant groundwater benefits. We have a lot on the ground all over the northeast at this point, and all of February to accrue even more. That leaves another question: with snow on the ground all over the Mid Atlantic region, will there be a significantly better striped bass spawn this spring? My suspicion is, no, there will not, at least not enough to make up for the collapse we've seen thus far, but I could be mistaken. Colder winters with more precipitation are indeed tied to improved recruitment. We'll just need to wait and see.

What I'm most excited about, personally, is this: 

https://www.nohrsc.noaa.gov/nsa/index.html?year=2026&month=1&day=31&units=e&region=Northeast

I anticipate a pretty good spring floodplain season for me... if you've done that fishery with me, you know why that brings a smile to my face. It's the coolest. And with snowpack like we have throughout the watershed, it should be very reliable this spring. Book soon, because late March, April, and May do fill right in! 

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, oddity on Display, Sammy, and Cris & Jennifer, Hunter, Gordon, Thomas, Trevor, Eric, Evan, Javier, Ryan, Dar, Eric, Truman, and Collin 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.

October-November Guiding Updates

 Hey folks! It's fall, right? Spastic weather aside, it is, I guess. We're in drought conditions, streams are very low, and the leaf hatch has commenced. So despite the temperature aggressively flip-flopping and the disappointing lack of good storms, it is indeed fall here in southern New England, and that brings a few changes to my guiding program. This late summer/fall transition period certainly wasn't unproductive though, with a few really cool highlights. I did as many big river floats as I could, and they all had their moments even on the slower days. Though smallmouth were the primary headliner, pike and stripers made plenty of showings as well. 

Greg with a nice one on a soft plastic

Barred up aggressor for Andrew

Schoolie for Dar... we were seeing a few much bigger than this!

Javier's pike put on a good show waking off the bank.

And of course there were plenty of good carp too. Late summer often gives up a few really good ones and this year was no exception. Winner goes to JK with this record breaker:

The carp are, of course, still going. It isn't as predictable at this point in the year, so I wouldn't recommend trying to book for them unless you have some flexibility with your schedule. Warmer days, especially after warmer nights, will be much better. 

In the salt, I'm still plugging away at the multispecies trips. They've got a heavier weakfish bend this year than last, they're becoming even more widespread and abundant. We're getting them both in daylight hours and at night, and some pretty nice ones are showing this year too. That's keeping me around the creeks and rockpiles. There are bonito and albies around as well, and when on anchor at rockpiles it's not at all out of the question to get shots at them from the canoe. Tautog season opens October 10th and I'm more than equipped to put you on your first fly rod blackfish! I do light tackle jigging for them as well, both shore and canoe based in shallow waters taking an approach very few others are. It's an interesting game, if you care to try it!

Jason with a good fly rod tautog

Jonathan's lifer weakfish.

And its salmon season again. Just like last year we're in drought conditions and the Shetucket is quite low, so it will be walk and wade trips only for the foreseeable future. This low water does provide shots to catch them on dries though, and that's always fun. If you have a flexible schedule, it's always best to try to hit an evening window or a cloudy or even rainy day, that's when we do our best, but conditions aside I can always put you in front of a salmon with the best flies to get the job done. I'll be taking Salmon bookings right into winter, and if we do start getting water enough to float I'll be doing float trips in the NRS, so look forward to that! 

Mark with a late season salmon from a productive float.

Aside from those saltwater and salmon targeted trips, there are other options coming up as well including kokanee, stillwater trout, and a continuation of the warm-water floats for bass and pike. I love this season, it's one of those times when there's just so much that can be really good it can be hard to decide what to do any given day. I love the fall but it does go fast. Don't let it slip you by!

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, oddity on Display, Sammy, and Cris & Jennifer, Hunter, Gordon, Thomas, Trevor, Eric, Evan, Javier, Ryan, Dar, Eric, and Truman 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. 

August-September Guiding Updates

 

I love the latter half of summer, I just do. I know some people fret over the days getting shorter and things getting a bit dry and low, I don't really. I love August and September. They provide a kick butt variety. particularly, though, I'm growing more and more fond of late summer smallmouth floats on big water. It's visual, the fish can be fickle enough to provide a challenge but also so absurdly aggressive at times they make it impossible to screw up. I just love them, they have such attitude and aggression but not so much so as to make it too easy. And there's always a chance to put one in the air that's over 22 inches. 

Stephen from Kismet Outfitters with a good one that hammered a Sid at the surface.

Right now, the water is still a little on the warm side for pike, but nights are gradually getting cooler and longer again. That'll change things, the pike will eat better and I'll feel better about hooking and fighting the as temperatures drop well below 80 again. The smaller ones are moving now, most days one or two will show themselves, often leaving us with a fly-less leader and couple of muttered cusses. A few even make it to hand. 

Ed with a 20 incher

Some days, I've taken to beaching the boat, getting out and wading, With the river very low now, this makes for a nice break to cool off a bit on the hot days. It has also provided some shots at some carp and schools of roving, shad fry feeding bass.

And of course there's the salt. Stripers, though? forget it it. Terrible, miserable, no good, bad. If you ask for them, I'm sorry, unless something changes dramatically I just can't. They aren't here like they were just a few years ago. BUT... some things are that weren't, and it's a great time to just go rack up species. Weakfish, scup, fluke, spot, maybe even a cownose ray? It's a good time out there in the marshes and coves, and my canoe is the perfect craft to cover the shallows. Sure, you could go book a guide on a trout stream and slug it out in tough, low water conditions for a few trout... or you could use some of the same tackle and tactics and catch a plethora of weird and wonderful salty characters. 

So that's the short of the long of it. This has been a good summer so far, with a lot of great clients. So far this August, and it'll take something pretty special to give it a run so attempt to de-throne him at your own peril, fish of the month goes to Collin Steadman with this ripper 27.3lb common carp. What a monster! Thanks as always to everyone who has made it out with me so far this year, it keeps the good times rolling. 

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, oddity on Display, Sammy, and Cris & Jennifer, Hunter, Gordon, Thomas, Trevor, Eric, Evan, Javier, Ryan and Dar 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.