17 Years

"What's up dog, want some coffee?" Levi whispered as I entered the kitchen, a little groggy but full of anticipation none-the less. "Morning, sure, thanks," I whispered back. "Hell yeah," he replied, "How stoked are you?"

"Pretty stoked."

When the cicadas last came to Central Pennsylvania, I was 11 years old. I'll be 45 when the come back next. That's a lot of time elapsed, and a lot changes. I hadn't yet picked up a fly rod in 2008, in 2042 who knows what life will be like. This year the bugs came again on their cycle and my silly addicted ass trucked it westward thrice, chasing a sickness so good it can't be beat. I've raved about the periodical cicadas before; in 2021 when I intercepted the periodicity in Maryland, and last year when a dual emergence took me to Illinois, Arkansas, Missouri, and Iowa. When magicicadas come out of the ground, I want to be there. They make up one of the last great biomass events of the sort here in the US, and while many were constant, like the buffalo, and some were annual migrations, like the passenger pigeon, there's something extra special and enchanting about an event that occurs more than a decade apart each time. It is miraculous that we still have these bugs at all, the landscape they live under is different every time the nymphs come up. That they still come up from one of the best regions for wild trout fishing East of the Mississippi... How lucky is that? Though, I suppose the same factors that have allowed the cicadas to persist have not been insignificant in providing habitat advantages for the wild trout either. 

Levi and I stepped out into the humid, warm morning air about ten minutes later with a little bit of our gear and a lot of hope for the day. "Hold on, before we go we gotta move the bugs", I said. We were staying at Levi's good friend's, Paul and Kathryn, and they were going to take down a tree in their backyard that day. It was time for a quick rescue mission. We walked over with our phone flashlights on to see dozens of pale, ghostly looking imagos and instars on the tree trunk and low branches. We collected as many as we could and moved them to nearby bushes. When periodical cicadas first emerge they come out of the ground through simple little holes, or sometimes, through turrets of soil that poke up above the ground, small towers of their own design that are made pre-emergence in wet areas in what is presumed to be a bid to keep mud and water from getting into their holes before the emerge. Those final instar nymphs climb out and go for the closest tree or bush, shed their nymphal shuck into imagos- the last, adult stage of their life cycle -and like many emerging insects, take a little while to harden up and get ready to go about their business. They'll go from pale and soft to firm, glistening, black and orange bugs, maintaining deep red eyes through the process. We shuttled as many as we could to safety before hopping in the car to head to the river. 

Central Pennsylvania holds fond memories for both Levi and I, though mine are more limited in number and a tad more recent. Levi fished trout in the limestone region the last time the cicadas came out in 2008, I first fished the area with my good friend Michael Carl in 2018. I've since returned a handful of times to poke into places I'd fished that first time, and a few new ones. Much of Pennsylvania is still Bucolic and beautiful, with sparse populations and varied terrain. Here, the Appalachians  form a series of arching, near parallel ridges. These start near Meyersdale, and you cross or cut through about a dozen spines headed East towards Chambersburg which sits in a wide lowland with rolling hills and the classic carts topography associated with limestone. East of Chambersburg is a less defined but similarly arching range of hills, encompassing Michaux State Forest and extending, broken by the Susquehanna, almost all the way to Reading. Throughout the main crux of the ridges to the west and north are smaller versions of the same sort of lowlands that Chambersburg and Carlisle sit in, each pocked with farmland and hugged on either side by tall ridges. In many of those low areas between the ridges is where the limestoners or limestone influenced creeks live, though each audaciously cuts through the ridges at some point on their journeys toward the Susquehanna, some more defiantly than others. The Little Juniata scrapes starkly through the ridge above Barree, Fishing Creek winds tightly under the steep topography on her way toward Lamar. And then Spring Creek, toward the apex of the curve of the ridges, gently wanders through a less strip of rock between Bellefonte and Milesburg. The millennia that allowed these streams to eat through these seemingly immovable stone ridges is too substantial for our simple human minds to fully grasp. It inspires aww though, when you stop and look at the landscape for a moment. 

Though not as diverse as the southern end of Appalachia, which boast the highest diversity of salamanders in the world and the largest of freshwater fish in the country, these Pennsylvania ridges aren't lacking in life. It's no surprise given that large swaths of this land are still very wild. Though logging has occurred for decades, as well as that farming down low and a slow hum of building in some towns, much of this place is still rugged. The terrain is gnarly and thick, and one can get lost if the try. This is the one of the last places in the country that still allows hunting of timber rattlesnakes, albeit in very limited and regulated form. Indeed they're quite stable here... still, I'd love to see this archaic hunt done away with. Why mess with one of the last best places this species has as a stronghold? Up on those high ridges though, we weren't hearing many cicadas. It was early though, as evidenced by the nymphs crawling out of the ground en masse that morning. We'd need to find an area where the bugs had already been out and flying for a while. Soil temperature has everything to do with emergence timing, and some places warm faster than others. We were committed though, and with windows open and ears trained to a familiar buzz, it didn't take long to find what we were looking for. 

"Mark says the shops the guys at the shop basically told him the fish aren't on them yet and not to waste his time fishing cicadas" Levi reported as we drove between spots. "Oh yeah, it's not worth it at all yet" I retorted snidely and we both laughed. We'd just had exactly the sort of fishing we'd driven over five hours for. Not size, albeit, but numbers? Whoa did we ever have that. And we'd had it to ourselves too, leap frogging up a piece of water neither of us had fished in years with not a soul in sight. Just brown trout sucking down big bugs without consequence... until our hooks pierced their lips. It was... absurd? Deranged? What dreams are made of? All of the above. When I fished Brood X in 2021, I got a modest taste of what trout fishing the periodicals could be, with a couple absurdly fat and happy wild brown trout. This was a more complete picture, as good as you hear it is. We traded remarks and shook our heads in disbelief each time we leap frogged, both reveling in the success of timing things well enough not only to have good fishing, but beat the masses. And, so long as the shops were still downplaying things, it felt like we had good chances to find pockets of stellar fishing throughout the trip. 

Where we were for that first pound-down wasn't a big fish location, but that didn't matter. Having trout come out of every riffle and pocket to hammer our big foam dry flies was thrilling. You can certainly work through similar water with similar flies- especially early in the morning and at times when some golden stoneflies or hoppers are present, or even if there's a modest number of annual cicadas -and pick up a few fish. This wasn't that. This was interacting with possibly as much as a quarter of the trout biomass of the stretch we fished and catching a disproportionate chunk of it. The fish were giddy. I had more than one nice fish (for this place that was 13-14") charge straight upstream a foot or more in fast shallow riffles to eat my fly. This was the dream. 

We were on our way to another spot on the same creek when we received that report from Mark, a stretch I'd fished before and done well with wild rainbows and some browns. The sound out the window as we closed in on our destination and the empty pull off when we got there said we were going to step in it again. 

The storied history of trout fishing in the area of State College is an interesting one, and though many eastern trout anglers may know bits and pieces of the story I think a lot of it has been glossed over. Spring Creek has one of the more distinct histories of course. Many may be aware that Spring Creek was a brook trout dominated fishery into the end of the 1800's, when introduced brown trout began to supplant the native char. By 1950 a native trout in Spring Creek's main stem was a rare occurrence. The origins of some of the rainbow trout that exist in the now mostly un-stocked stream remain a bit controversial, though I'd argue on behalf of some being stream born given the alkalinity, relative temperature stability, and shear perfectness of both par and adults of some specimens. of course, hatchery escapees from Benner Springs and Fisherman's Paradise, and stocked fish moving up from Bald Eagle creek contribute. Anyone who wants to can see the results of this in a tiny stretch right in Bellefonte, where you can pay a quarter or two for some pellets from a dispenser and toss them into a short, closed-to-fishing stretch where trout bigger than some of the carp present in the same spot will greedily take whatever you give them. Levi, Paul and I stood on the wall in Bellefonte one day, tossing leftover french fries and watching giant trout eat them. Those fish aren't Spring Creek's calling card though. If you've heard of the place but never been, your familiarity may start and end with the existence of the famed Fisherman's Paradise section. This piece of water was bought by the state Fish Commission in 1930 for construction of a hatchery and to demonstrate and test new stream improvement methods¹. A hatchery was built four years later. With heavy stocking and stream improvement that are now known in some cases to improve fishing more so that fishery health, the place soon boomed in popularity with anglers. The regulations then imposed ended up being quite unprecedented, and even in today's ecosystem might be though of as incredibly strict. Fishing was restricted to May through July, barbless flies were enforced, wading was prohibited, and there was a small and finite number of visits you could make. Even though some of the stricter regulations haven't carried over to present day, the popularity rivals the present day. More than 44,000 angler trips were registered in 1952. Photos from that era reflect this, with a parking lot jam full and anglers standing shoulder to shoulder on the banks of a Spring Creek that looks so different today it may as well be a different river entirely. 

In 1982, triggered by kepone and mirex contamination, the commission stopped stocking trout in Spring Creek and enforced no-harvest regulations. In turn, the wild trout population, brown trout specifically, absolutely exploded. It has been said that there have been as many as 3,000 trout per mile in Spring Creek, making it very high on (if not at the top) of the list of most densely trout populated streams in the Eastern United States. That population density has changed with time, of course, having apparently increased until 2000 and being on a downward trend since. That downward trend is likely tied to development in the watershed, and PFBC notes as much:

"In other watersheds, impervious surface area has been used as a good surrogate of urban development; when imperviousness reached 7-11%, trout populations were lost. The Spring Creek watershed had 12% impervious cover in 1995, and in the upper one-half of the watershed, impervious cover was 19%. We suggest that the reason Spring Creek is still able to sustain wild trout with this degree of urbanization is the relatively large input of groundwater into the stream. Further development that increases impervious cover, reduces groundwater recharge, or both, will certainly increase the stress on Spring Creek and reduce its ability to support wild trout."²

As development continues in the area around State College, and as climate change continues, its hard to say what the future holds for Spring Creek. What remains abundantly clear to me is that it, and even some of the more marginal trout streams in Central Pennsylvania, make even the best places we have in Connecticut look like a joke. Part of that is the nature of limestone, but part of it is an indictment on what building can do. Connecticut and our rapidly dying coldwater fisheries should be a good example of what NOT to do if you want to keep strong wild trout fisheries around when it comes to development, road salt use, lack of riparian protection, over-stocking, on and on and on. 

One thing Connecticut doesn't fail with is common carp. Europe's most popular "course" fish is highly abundant in the state and isn't going anywhere. Recently, after a number of fish had been caught over the years that could have cracked the former record, someone finally clocked one over fifty pounds. Well over, in fact. At over 58 pounds, Norbert Samok's record fish is a significant achievement. Of course, Pennsylvania has carp too. The state record was caught in 1962 by an angler named George Brown. The fish weighed 52 pounds... ha! We've got you beat there, PA. I can't gloat too much though, because instead of getting the chance to fish periodical cicada eating carp, I can't really wait around in Connecticut. It turned out Pennsylvania was going to give me a challenge too, though. 

Levi and I met Mark Hoffman in Boalsburg on our second morning for our first serving of warm water cicada mania. Haze clung to the hills as the light came up, that sort of low morning humidity that suggested a very hot day was incoming. We hopped in with Mark and headed toward a place where carp, overhanging trees, deep lake shore, and periodical cicadas all overlapped. Surface disturbance was visible as we crossed a bridge over the lake on the way in. There was heavy calling as we pulled into the launch. Anticipation was high, especially for me. I know this game a little bit, I've caught some carp on cicadas. But something was going on at the ramp that put a more than slight kink in the plan. The back cove was all muddy, and in various spots on both the near and far side there was a ruckus going on. Splashing, crashing, tail slapping, jumping... these carp were busy humping, not eating cicadas. The thing with the carp spawn is that it can kind of happen any time the water gets warm. I've seen carp spawn as early as April 10th and as late as September 3rd. Sometimes that's just a few pods of fish and plenty are still happily and busily feeding away. This wasn't that, though. We motored all over the lake and for the most part found nothing but carp making more carp. It got hotter and hotter as the day went on, and though I picked up some largemouth on cicada patterns and Levi ran a little chartreuse bugger and put a smackdown on white crappie, this wasn't what we hoped for. 

As the heat became more and more oppressive, frustration boiled over. We bailed, sweaty and ready for lunch. It wouldn't be for a couple days, right as our trip came to an end in fact, that we got a shot at the carp again. We met Mark at the same launch, just hours to spare before we needed to hit the road. This time there was no thrashing and crashing on that far bank. The carp should be feeding now, of that I was fairly confident. The most confident, in fact, as the previous attempt had shaken Levi's. In fact it had taken a bit to convince him that this could be worthwhile. We motored out of the launch and rounded the corner, travelling down the shoreline where cicadas were calling their little tymbals off. It wasn't long before I saw it: a carp tipped the wrong way, with it's head up and its tail down, orange lips at the surface, sucking down one of the bugs that had so haplessly bumbled onto the lake surface. The were here....

They weren't easy though, and we weren't the only ones on the water. A few other boats were out with fly rods, all working the banks looking for targets. Any pressure can complicate things, especially with carp. These are sensitive, shy fish. Before we found a couple willing carps, Levi managed to catch one of the nicer largemouth bass I've seen in a while. Getting big bucketmouths on cicadas isn't a bummer at all. 

Largemouth bass are America's favorite gamefish. An estimated 16 billion dollars a year is spent on bass fishing. To put that in perspective, the estimated annual market for fly fishing in the US is 750 million dollars. The people love bass, enough so that they've been moved here and there and everywhere. Where we were, just one watershed divide separated us from the native range of the northern bass, but we were fishing to non-native fish where we were. Given their widespread introduction and infusion in the fishing culture, many anglers don't realize when bass aren't native where they fish. In Connecticut, neither smallmouth nor largemouth bass were present historically, and that information is relatively available to anyone who cares to look. That said, it isn't hard at all to find anglers who insist that they are a native fish. Aa great many angler believe a great many things to be true that just aren't though, that is a reality that no longer surprises me. I just roll my eyes with my lips pursed in a tight, straight line and repeat the same statements again-- "actually, the only larger native freshwater predator species in Connecticut were chain pickerel, brown bullhead, and brook trout...." It's remarkable how much of our fisheries are made up of introduced species. In much of the northeast, we're looking at as much as, even more half of the popular target species. Even somewhere like Maine, where landlocked salmon and lake trout did exist naturally, they've been scattered about in all sorts of places they never were before. We think of fishing as a way to be in nature, failing frequently to realize that what we fish isn't actually natural. 

Even the lake we were on wasn't natural. In fact, large natural lakes are essentially non-existent in Pennsylvania. The largest natural lake in the state is Conneaut, in Crawford County. At just 243 acres, it is a piddly body of water compared to the Pymatuning Reservoir just miles away, and even it wasn't immune to human alteration. In 1834 connection to the French Creek canal raised the lake by 11 feet. The geology in Pennsylvania just doesn't make big lakes, unless you count Erie, of course. I wonder how the fishing was in the river that made this reservoir we were fishing before the dam went up, and I wondered how many more cicadas there'd been before the land they lived under was flooded. What fish would I have caught here in 1685, just 20 emergence cycles ago. Would I have been catching 20 inch fallfish here? Giant brook trout? How many billions more cicadas must there have been?

What was is now gone, and there's little left to do but find a carp, put a piece of foam in front of it, and not set the hook too early. 

¹ Tom Burrell, The Express. Dec 14 2024 The Evolution of Fisherman's Paradise

² Carline, R. F., R. L. Dunlap, J. E. Detar, and B. A. Hollender. 2011. The fishery of Spring Creek – a watershed under siege. Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission, Technical Report Number 1, Harrisburg, PA.

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. 

A Single Sailboat

 I take significant strides to avoid the hendrickson crowds. It's a hatch I enjoy fishing, they're such a classic ephemera that can bring up some larger wild trout under the right conditions, but that means everyone and their mother is just as keen to fish them on the major rivers. And unfortunately the hatch just doesn't happen everywhere, even in places where it used to. The Housatonic doesn't seem to have a Hendrickson hatch to speak of anymore. Nobody quite knows why, and it may be a site by site problem, but aquatic insects are, on the whole, not doing so hot. In some places, nutrient deficiency means less bugs- ironically, septic tank leaks and farm runoff with manure in it isn't always the worst thing. In others, perhaps the runoff is the issue. Streams are more "flashy" now as areas develop with paved, impervious surfaces, so flows are more sporadic and less stable. And there's that pesky road salt. So wandering to places questionable has become the mantra, wondering if there will be bugs at all. Find a rock or log next to a pool or run, sit, ponder, don't make a cast unless a trout rises. And so I found myself standing next in a pool somewhere in Massachusetts after watching sleepily for a while. There'd been some duns flying by. I caught one, looked at it for a while and took some pictures. 

Eventually, looking into the reflective glare toward the top of the pool, on of the little sailboats appeared alone. In twirled through little eddies and rode down a seem, standing out like a sore thumb. Hapless little creatures they are in this state, its no wonder trout eat them with such abandon sometimes. Though this bug was by itself, I wondered if enough fish were looking upward to intercept it or if, by emerging in such sparsity the mayflies today were making it to the air freely without exception. It drew nearer, still drifting along. This is anthropomorphizing to an egregious degree, but that little bug looked happy to me. She bobbed along with her wings perked up skyward in the bright sunlight, seemingly carefree and safe as could be. My gaze followed it as it meandered down the seem. It then fluttered once, fluttered again, and in one fateful instant before it overcame the surface tension and took to the air, a foot long trout rose and she disappeared in a small splash. "Aww..." I uttered audibly though I was alone. That's when I stood, and decided that I'd seek vengeance for that little bug. The pool was wide and deep but I made it to a comfortable rock  above and across from where the trout had taken the bug and within reach of  a forty foot cast. It was a slow effort, as I didn't want to send ripples over the only fish I'd so far seen rise in a few trips of this sort. Once there, careful triangulations were performed to determine where that trout had been as the fly was dressed. Then I let fly a cast. I'd decided that this revenge would be swift but fair, it wouldn't take more than one cast. My fly and leader landed with slack to spare, and as the fly settled into that same seem the mayfly had taken her final ride down it looked much like that singular little sailboat had. And evidently I was not the only one that thought so as the trout came to it just as willingly as it had the natural. The battle was pretty one sided, admittedly. Modern fly tackle more than capable of subduing twelve inches of squirming brown trout. At hand, I scolded the trout, removed my fly, then sent it off with a smile. That had been enough for me, and I packed it in for the day. 

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, and Javier 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. 

Solitudinous

 There's no such word, but these are the sorts of things that come to mind when you are by your lonesome, laying on the forest floor focusing on breathing and stretching to relive tension in your back. I find I really feel do fatigue now, that close to two decades of  tromping around in the woods, rivers, and urban landscape with a variety of shoulder-mounted carrying cases- be the slings or back packs -loaded up with cameras, fishing tackle, and necessities did eventually start to do damage. So I can't just ignore it anymore. I have to pick and chose what I carry and how I carry it, and I need to rest and stretch. And so that's what I was doing, twisted into an odd pose on the forest floor, trying to get my diaphragm to do what I'm told it should do instead of what years of bad posture have taught it to do; and trying to stretch the muscles in my shoulder so I wouldn't keep wanting to kill myself so much. It would be a rather odd sight were anyone to come upon me, but such an encounter would be doubtful. This was BFE, if ever such a place existed. I'd just caught the first fish of the day. She was a lovely little brook trout no more than four and a half inches in length and had come up for a dark colored deer-hair caddis. I was fishing the way I wanted to this day: with a dry fly. This was to spite fairly cool water temperatures. I'm sure that I could have tempted a few more and perhaps larger fish with a nymph of some sort, but there was no need. Some bugs were active, including the cursory winter stones which occasionally skittered across the pools. I only saw one meet its demise in the rise form of a fish, though. A few hundred yards in and the plop of the little char as I dropped it from by barbless hook back into the stream told me I could take a rest. 

So there I lay in the dappled light on the forest floor, stretching and thinking about everything and nothing. It was a very bright, bluebird day. A cold front had passed through overnight, draped from a low pressure center that tracked through Canada. In front of it had been seasonably warm air in the mid to high fifties, as well as some rain and clouds. Though the air behind the front wasn't cold necessarily it was cold-er. And wind came with it. It whipped the tree tops about a bit and I occasionally heard a branch come down. Not big ones, really, but enough to make me wonder if one might clock me in the head at some point. The sun and the deep blue sky felt a bit contrary to the wind, but the two do often come in tandem. Those dry, clear, bright post-frontal day are wind makers. The blue was brilliant though, and the radiant heat from our burning gas ball was doing wonders for my hands that had gotten a little chilled coming in contact with the water. 

When I did finally stand back up I felt a fair bit better, but everything was bluer than it ought to be. The bright sky had left a lasting tint to my vision that lingered a good few minutes. I shouldered my sling pack, this time backwards to try to counteract the lingering soreness in my right shoulder, and told myself to just leave it in the car next time. I'd be far better off pocketing a box of flies and spool of tippet, and did I really need the camera? 

I worked my way down stream, being picky about where I fished. This wasn't the time to try to eek a fish out of every nook and cranny, I just wanted to fish some of the longer runs and pools. I didn't used to fish down very often. It was Alan Petrucci that changed my direction in that regard. Prior to knowing Alan I fished pretty strictly upstream, trying to stay behind and out of sight of the trout. This worked fine, but I learned from Alan that I could put my fly in places while going down that one just couldn't get it to while going up. I still fish up sometimes, but not always. 

I reached a run that that looks perfect, and eased into a position on the bank well above it. I gathered my fly line in hand, pulled back, and let it fly in a short bow and arrow cast. I then fed line to let the fly drift down the run. When it had drifted a distance I felt sufficient, I let it come about and hang in the current. A waking dry fly like this has almost universal appeal to Salvelinus fontinalis. On one of the popular and pressured stretches of river in northern Maine I was told to fish stonefly nymphs, that a mono rig would serve me well, that these brook trout were harder. I listened, but only for a bit. Frustration and my own rationale wouldn't let me fish a mono rig to a big wild brook trout, it felt counter to what should be done. Perhaps luck is a better friend to me than I usually suspect it is, but I had absolutely no difficulty catching robust brookies and landlocked salmon on a skated Hornberg. Don't let these nymphing nerds fool you; brook trout love a skated fly. And even in that barely forty degree water in Central Connecticut, it worked a charm. Up came a brookie, and I whiffed him like I was trying to. I played with that fish for a little while, getting it to come up again and again. Eventually, despite my best efforts, the hook did get stuck in that trout's mouth. 

I took another break, though not a stretching one. My camera had come out of my bag for the fish, may as well use it. I'm not sure why photography has always been a compulsion for me. From a technical standpoint, I remain very much an amateur. But there's been a camera in my hand on and off for almost as long as I have memories... pointed at the sky, at animals, at water. It's just something I do because it feels good and because I like pretty things. 

The stream took me down a little further, where a brushy meadow turned me back around. I rested again there though it hadn't been more than ten minutes since the last one- but only because I spotted a fish and decided to watch it for a little while. Eventually though the deer trails took me back to the car. It had been a satisfying little morning. 

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, Courtney, Hunter, Gordon, Thomas, Trevor, Eric, and Evan 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.

Bug Factory

 A lot of trout waters in Connecticut go pretty much unnoticed. Though the covid fishing boom brought new pressure to some of them, it didn't seem to have lasting affects for most. While the Farmington continues to see a perpetual parade of anglers, other river slink by in the shadows, known to locals and not much in the way of anyone else. One grabbed my attention a while back. At almost an hour away from me, it wasn't exactly convenient, but rumors of large wild fish from the few people I could find that knew anything at all about it encouraged my interest. Garth and I made a few wintertime trips, one of which produced a couple hatchery rainbows while another proved fruitless, but I had a feeling this stream might really pop come spring. Fast forward from February to late May, and I'd certainly missed most of the window when I happened to make a stop while on other business. A small town pull-off gave me immediate access to the river, and when I walked down to the waters edge it was a sight to behold. The rivers surface was coated with little blue-winged olives and March browns. 

Being a bit of a bug nerd and a lover of the dry fly, I couldn't rig fast enough. My habits have drifted me away from springtime hatch fishing in recent years, which is a shame as it is not only something I particularly enjoy but a style of fishing I had gotten quite good at. There is something special about observing a rising trout, gauging its size and attitude, making an approach, then landing the perfect cast and drift over its head and seeing that snout come up for the fly. It is cliché, but for a reason. That really is fly fishing. The cardinal sin was putting mass on the hook and pursuing the sort of fish that don't eat bugs. As Hank Patterson once said, "a fly doesn't have to be a fly fly to be a fly". But it is nice to fish a fly fly sometimes, and I probably should more often.

Now, I already knew this wasn't a high density river fish wise. It was classic marginal water. So though there was a blanket hatch in progress, heads were spread out. I found a few gulpers in the head of the first pool I looked at though. I lengthened and tapers down my leader as I watched them feed, then tied on a simple grey Comparadun. With a complex hatch and fish rising in fairly riffled water at the head of the pool, I could see individual fish eating more than one species of bug and lacking fly fishing pressure, I figured these trout would eat something impressionistic rather than an accurate representation of one of the handful of species of mayfly I was seeing. I also watched one fish eat a blue winged olive, a pale mayfly that looked like a vitreous, and a caddis in quick succession. 

Of the four fish consistently rising, none of which seemed especially large, called to me. He was rapid fire housing every bug that came down his lane. I positioned myself above and adjacent to the fish on the bank and laid the fly about two feet above it, making one mid air mend in the process. The drift was fast. The trout rose to the fly without concern and I lifted the rod. There is a simple rhythm to the dry fly game once an angler is attuned to it. The outcome is almost manufactured, is if dropping this gorgeous little wild brown in the net was always going to happen as long as I followed the rhythm. 

The fish had an interesting different look to it than I'd generally expect, but after seeing a couple of photos of wild fish from the watershed I knew they had a different look. It was nice to get one after a few trips of searching, and confirmation that hard effort might yield even greater results here. The hatch continued into dark, and I kept fishing and picking of risers when I found them. It wasn't incredible fishing, but satisfying. And a testament to the quality of a relatively unknown river. I'm pulled to these places more and more with the popularity of trout fishing ever growing on the well known rivers. I'd rather fish a bug factory of a stream completely alone for just a handful of trout than share a pool with three or four anglers I don't particularly care to know. 

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, and Sammy 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

Ploop

 A grey squirrel sits on the branch of a mulberry tree, stuffing its face with almost-ripe fruit. The oblong white berries are just starting to get the brushed-on red tint look that means they're ready for the taking. The squirrel haphazardly plucks them from the small clusters they grow in, losing some now and then. Each berry falls, bouncing off branches and tumbling as they go. The tree would have it that these berries land on dry ground where some other animal might find them and spread the seeds to areas not already thickly canopied. But this tree loses some of its potential offspring each season, because this tree happens to grow over water. Each mis-picked berry, dropped by a squirrel, grackle, sparrow, or starling, falls to the water below with a distinct "ploop". And there it is met by hungry fish. Cyprinus carpio, as foreign to the landscape as the starling above, gather en masse under each mulberry tree and greedily feed on the sweet fruits each berry season. They have grown so familiar to that "ploop" sound that, even when one is far way from one of the trees and the berry fall is long done, they still frequently come to inspect anything that lands in the water in such a manor. 

The well rounded and observant fly angler will learn to predict such events. Food drives fish and when such abundance of calories- one which exceeds normal standards but isn't so high as to drive down competition -the angler can have not only excellent fishing but striking opportunities to watch wildlife interact. On this day, the angler sat poised below the mulberry tree looking up into its branches rather than down into the water. The squirrel busily worked in the foliage, and eventually knocked another berry free. The angler's gaze followed its indirect path to the water. It bounced off of one twig, knocked a leaf, then fell to the water's calmly rolling surface. Two shadows rushed to the berry's sound, creating wakes in their rush to obtain sustenance. Neither one actually found the berry, which was then slowly sinking to be battered about by bluegills before resting on the bottom. One of the carp mouthed at a peice of flower peddle but found it lacking. 

The angler observed not because he didn't want to catch a fish yet, but simply because he felt no pressure to. He'd stood in this spot before, watching the same show. He knew what would happen when he pulled line from his reel, made his cast, and let his spun deer hair fly land with a "ploop". He was in no rush. That would only lessen the amount of activity he saw before him now and there was no need to disrupt it just yet. He'd watched this show, sure. But he was far from tired of it. He was content to remain a passive viewer for a few more moments. 

When the desire to interact with the carp in front of him finally overruled his enjoyment of their un-bothered feeding, he wet his fly in the water at his feet. This would give it the weight to convincingly approximate the sound of impact as well as the buoyancy of the natural berries. They don't float high and dry as a foam fly or completely dry deer hair fly would. Then, with a sharp flick, he delivered his artificial lure underneath the mulberry tree. A chestnut colored mirror carp rushed to it, needing to beat out the competitors lurking nearby. It was completely and utterly duped, slurping down the berry with no sign of apprehension. The angler raised the rod and in time made work of taming the specimen. It was a lovely creature. The fly was removed and the fish returned to its habitat a lot more weary than it had been before. Indeed the battle had made aware the other carp as well, and only two remained near the tree. Their actions were flighty and quick though, and the angler felt it prudent to call it a day. Though he'd enjoy catching another, he knew he could so elsewhere thereby allowing these fish to return to their natural rhythm. There was no sense in not only making the fishing harder for himself down the line by over-educating these already clever fish, nor did he feel making their capture harder for the next angler down the path was a kind thing to do to a fellow watcher of the interplay of berries and animals. Whistling as he went down the path, the angler thought about "ploop" sounds, clumsy squirrels, and hungry carp. 

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.

Trouting About in Vermont (Pt. 3): The Wild Trifecta

 I've caught scant few wild rainbow trout in New England, which is okay. They shouldn't really be here and they can create significant competition for brook trout especially in small, cold, headwater streams. Because they require very cold runoff in the spring for their early spawning behavior, they're restricted to northern New England, largely Vermont and New Hampshire. Most of the wild rainbows I've caught have in fact been in Vermont. I personally love O. mykiss as a species. They're insectivorous, surface oriented, vibrant, and also as adaptable as is any salmonid. They possess substantial diversity, with forms and subspecies that behave and look quite differently. Unfortunately, most New Englanders' experience is limited to the worst examples of the species: the hideous, hardly functional, barely even real trout hatchery raised version. I'm always looking forward to getting to interact with wild ones again, and when I get to fish for them within their native range I will enjoy that even more. After getting our butts handed to us on the Battenkill on our second morning, I suggested we try a river that was known to hold wild rainbows. In fact, all three trout species we'd have opportunity to target on this trip would be present in this stream. 

This was a classic New England trout stream showing multiple characters; descending from the granite hills as a clear, broken freestone before lazily twisting and turning into the valley, gaining size but meandering and creating wonderful cut banks and slow pools. We took a top-down approach, starting in the picturesque and boulder filled upper end. This was a stunning, classic piece of New England brook trout water. 

We quickly found, though, that when we say a salmonid in these clear waters with visibly white-tipped fins, it was pretty much without fail a rainbow. I was a bit surprised by how much the rainbows looked like a brook trout in the water, and I'm not quite sure why it was the case. But each time I spotted a fish and watched it for a time, I eventually realized that I was looking at an Oncorhynchus. These elegant little fish acted much like brook trout would in the same water, often hovering mid water column and rising to intercept anything and everything they could. It's an eat or be eaten world for a small trout. Tiny brown trout occupied some of the same water, and they proved easier to bring to hand initially. Perhaps just because I was far less interested in them. 

I fished bombers, the perfect sort of fly for this water. In fact this was probably the closest I'd fished the Ausable Bomber to its home of origin. I wasn't that close, really. The waters where Fran Betters had tested his messy yet immensely productive flies were more than 50 miles away. But his flies were just as at home on the surface of this lovely brook in the Green Mountains as they'd be in the Adirondacks. That bright orange thread, fuzzy possum dubbing, buggy hackle, and buoyant and visible calf tail wing pull up surface oriented and opportunistic trout on small streams everywhere. Eventually, I manged to draw up a wild rainbow with mine and kept it stuck long enough to come to hand. 

That upper end proved to be difficult as it had just been fished prior to our passing through. We managed just a handful of fish and covered quite a lot of water. I felt it was time to go downriver, into the flat lands. There we might find larger fish and hopefully less pressure. 

When we reached our next destination, I promptly came to the conclusion that this was my kind of stream. Down here, it had a very different character. Meandering through dense brush and farmland, this felt like the kind of small water where some trout of not-small proportions might lurk. Garth and I went separate ways. He headed off downriver while I went up. In the first good run I came to, with another fly of Adirondack origins on (the Ausable Ugly) I deceived three small trutta. Each looked similar, but had very different character from those I've caught in other waters. This is something you'll notice as you begin to really know wild trout. They take on different appearances and characteristics based on where they live. These browns lived in extremely clear water with light colored sandy bottom, they were notably pale by comparison to brown trout I'd catch in other streams on this same trip. I would go so far as to say that I could tell you what stream certain brown trout were caught in just by their appearance alone. The browns in this stream had very plain fins, pale red spots, and salt-and peppery heads. There was variation within the stream, of course, but it was just variation on an identifiable theme. Were I to catch a brown that looked dramatically different here I'd be inclined to believe that it had moved in from a part of the watershed with different habitat. 

Continuing upstream, I found an active riser. It was clearly more substantial than any of the other fish I'd cast at, and I figured it would be a fairly easy sell. I tied the bomber back on, and one cast later stuck a very feisty, colorful wild rainbow. 

So began a stint of wildly productive small stream dry fly fishing. Most of the fish I'd catch would be rainbows, with the occasional small brown mixed in. Many were fish I spotted prior to making a cast, I luxury I don't always have on Connecticut's small streams. I was having a very enjoyable time. 

When I reached the limit of what I could fish headed upstream to meet back up with Garth. Though he wasn't skunked, he'd yet to catch a wild rainbow and I wanted to make sure he did on this trip. We ate lunch before heading out to try to find another stretch even further down to fish.. Both access and cell service were poor and we failed to locate another area to park and fish. That was alright, because on the way down to meet back up with Garth I'd seen a rather impressive fish, a rainbow in the mid teens residing in a classic meadow pool. I though we might get a shot at that fish if and evening rise started. 

We found ourselves on that pool as the sun set. Tiny mayflies, I think they were needhami or something similar, and a few caddis were emerging. There was maybe a half dozen trout rising in the pool. I gave Garth the first go, knowing most of these would be rainbows. Two were sipping bugs towards the back of the pool. We were careful and deliberate in getting into position as well as presenting to the fish. I figured they wouldn't all that selective given their behavior throughout the day and the mixed hatch. When caddis are mixing in with small mayflies, I find that trout will often pick caddis out willingly even when slurping the slough of smaller bugs. I figured a Sedgehammer would be an effective fly.

Garth got into place and began casting to the furthest back of the fish in the pool. It took a little time, he isn't well practiced in the dry fly game, but he finally got his wild rainbow. Now I was up at bat. I set my sights further up the pool where what I suspected was the larger fish I'd spotted earlier in the day was rising. I landed the Sedgehammer in the seem and the trout promptly rose to it. I lifted the rod and a silver bullet went airborne, flying across the pool. It landed darn near on the bank and caught some loose grass on the leader. Moment late it came off. Bummer though it was to lose the king of that pool, that was quite a spectacle to end the day on as well. Rainbows fight especially well. The spirit of a sizable wild rainbow is almost unbeatable. 

The unfortunate reality is, though the whole length of this stream would indeed have wild salmonidae and be spectacular brook trout habitat, the only brook trout we'd catch in that stream was one Garth got that looked to me to be a stocker. I caught one brook trout that morning on the Battenkill and she was a stunner of a wild fish. 

It was quite clear that the abundant rainbows, which more or less match the niche that brook trout would fill in this small stream environment, with the added factor of brown trout also being present, is keeping this from being the incredible native brook trout stream it so easily could and should be. It's a shame that our species so often feels the need to play God. Though I enjoyed fishing for these wild rainbows, had that been a mid-teens brook trout I hooked in that one pool I'd have been no less happy. Where possible both physically and socially, we should be reclaiming these streams. This stream likely isn't the easiest one to reclaim. There are so many others like it across the country that could be thriving native fisheries no less interesting and fishable than the currently existing non-natives. 

Thank you to my Patrons; Erin, David, John, Elizabeth, Brandon, Christopher, Shawn, Mike, Sara, Franky, Geof, Luke, Noah, Justin, Sean, Tom, Mark, Jake, Chris, and Oliver 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.

Trouting About in Vermont (Pt. 2): Tag-Team Sight Fishing Brook Trout

A washboard dirt road was shaking up everything in the 4Runner as Garth and I descended the hill from our first stream of the trip. At the base of the hill, we knew there was another river. We'd crossed it on the way in the previous night and I'd examined satellite imagery of it prior to the trip. It looked marginal, but if you don't check the bridge pool on a new stream on and exploratory trout trip, can you even call yourself a trout angler? We pulled off just before the bridge and hopped out. There was an man leaning against the upstream rail, looking at the water. We looked at the downstream side, scanning the slow, mirror calm pool for signs of salmonids, and patiently waited for the man to continue on his morning walk. We just didn't want to encroach. When he left, Garth took his place on the upstream side. "Oh", he said, having spotted what the gentleman had been looking at. There was a school of brook trout there, maybe 20 strong, some of them quite substantial. These couldn't possibly be wild fish, but when presented the opportunity to sight fish anything I take that opportunity. At very least they'd been in the river for a while and would be very selective in the slow pool. 

Knowing they'd not be visible from the position we'd have to cast from and that accurate casts would be necessary, we decided to tag team sight fish for them. We'd take turns, one of us would make the casts while the other stood on the bridge and called out the shots. This is a very fun way to fish and can be a fantastic learning experience. We rigged up a long, light leader with a small dry initially. My recollection of what that fly was is a little fuzzy, I believe it was a tiny nameless emerger pattern. Garth was at bat first. I positioned on the bridge while he waded slowly and quietly into place. It took a short time to dial the operation in, but he soon landed the fly over the fish and I watched one peel out and rise to the fly. 

We each managed a fish on the dry, but had other plans in mind. We opted to move on but return later in the trip if we didn't get distracted by something interesting somewhere else. 

A couple days later, there we were on that bridge again looking at that school of brook trout. This time they were un-inclined to rise, so we'd fish small and lightly weighted nymphs. I was exited. Though these were merely hatchery raised trout, one of my favorite sorts of fishing is fishing small nymphs or wet flies to salmonids in nearly still water. It s a game of long leaders, careful stalking, and diligent observation. There's no room for carelessness, lest the angler want to spook fish and cast to dead water all day. It is best played by sight, whether tag teaming as Garth and I were or independently when conditions allow, or with intimate knowledge of the water you're fishing. Whether its a lake, pond, or big flat on a river, there are places the trout will be and places they won't. This style of fishing grew on me first when fishing the East Branch of the Delaware, where brown trout dwelling in long flats feed on tiny mayfly nymphs blend in so well in the cobbled, multi-colored bottom that I would lose track of them even if they didn't move just by glancing away for a second. It progressed to Maine, where I approached weed edges and spring holes in a pond where trophy wild brook roamed in search of damselfly nymphs and could be caught with long, delicate casts and traditional wetflies. Then at home in Connecticut, when I found that trout rising in the slowest pools on misty summer mornings could be deceived better with minuscule pheasant tail nymphs than with any dry fly in my boxes. These scenarios all require similar presentations, and we'd be employing them on these brook trout in Vermont. 

Of course these char would be quite a bit more forgiving than a lot of those mentioned in the scenarios. We'd use a slightly shorter leader than I often would, somewhat larger flies, and they'd likely give us more opportunities. Whereas pulling one large wild brown out might spook and entire tightly packed pod sometimes, we could almost certainly get quite a few of these stocker brookies before the school got too nervous.  

We set about the process. I got up on the bridge while Garth got into position. I called out the location of fish, Garth made the most accurate cast he could, then I announced what the fish did, suggested presentation changes, and called out when a fish ate. Then we switched. This fish were indeed pretty easy. It didn't take all that much to draw them and it took much more to put the school down. We periodically rested them, remained delicate in our approaches, and Picked off fish after fish. There weren't any particularly big takeaways from fly selection, presentation, or anything else like that for you all to learn from. Those stocker brookies just weren't picky enough for that. What I took away and want to impart on you fellow anglers regards to setting the hook. Regardless of what the guy on the bridge said about the fish taking, the angler casting had to be patient with the hook set. The set itself was nothing special, a pointed but gentle lift. It was all about timing. I noted that no matter what Garth  said, If I waited a moment after he said I had a take, oftentimes until I felt the fish, I got a good hook set. If I set the moment he said I had a take I usually missed. This isn't really a surprise but it is a clear-cut example. Trout don't always spit a fly in an instant, I'd even go so far as to say they don't often do so, and giving the fish time to turn results in more fish to net. 

There were a few really big males mixed in with this school and obviously we wanted to catch one of those. I like to say, if I'm going to fish for fake trout that were raised in a concrete tank, they may as well at least be big. It came to a point of intentionally missing and pulling away from smaller fish, which were consistently getting to the fly first. One of the fatter males did make it to net, though it was still dwarfed by a couple of the fish in the school. 

Garth and I each ended up having goes at one of the largest fish. He missed a take from one of the giants. I ended up loosing one. It was frankly one of the heftier brook trout I've ever hooked, taking off on an exceptional run of the bat and putting a deep bend in the 5wt. The size 18 pheasant tail while rolling on the surface well downstream of where it had taken the fly. 

One of the things this trip was doing, quite unintentionally, was reminding me that I enjoy warm season daytime trout fishing. In recent years, I've been reserving it for the late fall, winter, and spring. In the warmer months I've pretty much just fished at night in recent years. CT's summer fisheries, with the exception of the Farmington (which I just don't enjoy anymore) and some small stream (which I don't like putting pressure on with frequent summer visits). There are also just plenty of other things to do close to home, things I often like more. For the last couple years, it's been carp. It can be hard for those of us who like to fly fish for any and every fish in all kinds of water to pick what to do. Here in the northeast there are an awful lot of options. Perhaps next season trout will be on the agenda for me a little bit more often. Though I tend to shirk the way many fly anglers hold salmonids up as the supreme fish to target, I devoted quite a few years to hard focused trout fishing for a reason. I know a lot more than I did then, and I'd like to improve my game a bit more. 

We shall see; come next summer the pull of double digit bowfin might be a impossible to resist. 

Thank you to my Patrons; Erin, David, John, Elizabeth, Brandon, Christopher, Shawn, Mike, Sara, Franky, Geof, Luke, Noah, Justin, Sean, Tom, Mark, Jake, Chris, and Oliver 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.

The Mirrors of Autumn

 The fly carp season is winding down. Sure, there'll be some late fall and winter bite windows, but on the whole things are coming to a close. It was a very good year for me. I got a lot of fish, my first mirror and then dozens upon dozens more, the most carp I've ever caught in a single day, my first periodical cicada carp, my first mulberry carp, and two top ten biggest carp. I'm going to go ahead and call it my best carp year since I started fishing for these things seven years ago.

Will watching my best season wind, I spent some time walking and casting to small mirrors and commons. Though the mulberries were months gone I still managed to get a handful of fish to come up for the dry. That was one of the coolest discoveries of my fishing career; getting carp, even tailing carp in as much as three feet of water, to come up for a berry pattern. I still haven't applied this method on a waterway that doesn't have mulberry trees, but I will be doing that next season. 

One evening I was battling waning light and mosquitoes and struggling to get looks from the fish. I was also dealing with walkers throwing rocks in the canal... oh, the joys of fishing high foot traffic areas. I was running out of real estate when I found a shallow tailer on the far bank. I made a kick ass cast and the fish turned to find the fly. It didn't seem to see it, so I stripped it. This sounds absurd, I know, berries don't dart across the surface. But for some reason it works. The fish charged hard and ate. Rarely is a hook set as satisfying when a cast with a dry fly to a carp is so well executed and the fish eats just as perfectly and beautifully as you could want. So, so satisfying. And of course the fish responded fabulously with some thrashing on the surface and a good hard run. It was excellent.

 When I didn't get fish to react to dry flies, I was still able to get them on the good old Ausable Ugly. Honestly those hook sets might be just as satisfying. A carp on the fly is a carp on the fly. They don't come easy most of the time. Each one is a result of hard work and hours of observations. 

Most of my clients this season wanted to carp fish. I only ran a very small handful of trips for other species. From the get-go, I knew it was going to be the trickiest fish for me to get clients onto consistently and that proved very true. Some of the worst conditions of the year also happened to set up right on the days I was booked, which didn't help, leading me to take a couple clients out for discounted redemption trips when they didn't even get a single good shot on their first trips. I have to say thanks to those of you that booked me this carp season. If anyone is interested in learning the ropes of late fall or winter carp fishing, feel free to contact me, but such a trip needs to be planned in accordance with a weather window, so if you don't have flexibility I don't want to waste your time. Hopefully I'll see some of you next season, it' going to be a good one. 

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.