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!

Knee Deep in The Trees

 It isn't terribly common that I stay out on the same piece of water I just guided on for five hours. Typically I've seen what I need to see and am keen to go elsewhere and explore or make sure some other bite is setting up. But sometimes a bite so good is underway that I'm compelled to stick around. That was the case one day in late April this spring. I'd found hoards of carp churning the water into a muddy soup in a flooded area so thick it made approaching them in the boat tricky. But I knew I had waders in the car, and that the bottom was firm enough I could approach these fish on foot. So after I parted ways with my client, I hastily dawned my waders again, offloaded some un-needed weight from the canoe, and paddled back to the area in question. With the boat hauled up safely onto a dry embankment, I crept my way out into the flooded forest trying to make as little wake and disturbance as possible. 

Carp often have somewhat predictable feeding patterns and paths in lakes and rivers that maintain a semi predictable route unless spooked, but in flooded woods they don't set up the sort of home territories. The same individual fish are often in the same area- I've seen the same orange koi in the same patch of flood plain for the last three seasons -but their feeding is very random. There'll be a post up on Patreon about carp feeding patterns soon for those interested. But for the context of this story, what that means is that I had very little clue what each fish I spotted was going to do next. They might tail 15 feet away one moment then pop up right at my feet, linger in a bush for a while, or just go in a straight line. It was very erratic, which made things both interesting and quite tricky. The thick mud they were stirring up was also a complication, making it near impossible to see some of the fish. I've become fairly good at both finding the fish and intuiting the strike without feeling or seeing it though, and that makes all the difference. It really wasn't all that long before I go one, a feisty little common. I maneuvered the rod and put a lot of pressure on it to control the fish in the tight quarters and snaggy environment. It's a close quarters brawl, no room to see backing here. 

I continued along after I let that fish swim, looking for tail swirls, fresh muds, and patches of tiny bubbles or "fizz". Fish were absolutely everywhere, so it was more about finding the easiest target than finding a target at all. It wasn't unusual that I could mark half a dozen or more fish feeding within 30 feet of me. Regardless of size, I always erred to whatever fish was closest to me. In fact, I didn't even know what I was casting to when I got this gorgeous little fantail to eat. 

2024 has been the year of the fantail here. Last year I only put one in the net. This year there's been more trips when one made it to the boat that trips where one didn't. Often we've managed more than one! I'm not sure what accounts for that abundance in the genetic stock, but there sure are a lot of them. I'm not complaining. They're such absurd and cool looking fish, with crazy elongated fins, droopy long barbles, and wild pom-poms in their nostrils. They're really quite beautiful fish. Especially the one I got on the other day I stayed late and waded after a trip....

I count myself so, so lucky to have a fishery of this caliber at my fingertips. Though the flood game is short lived its just so incredibly engaging, even on the days when very few fish commit to eating. It's like being in a bayou, but right here in the northeast. And in that bayou there are 5 to 30 pound fish cruising around and feeding, and with the right boat and gear I can get clients to put flies in front of those fish. It's just so, so cool and there's really no other fishery like it around here. 

After getting four nice, feisty fish in a short session, I made my way back to the canoe, taking a shot at an unwilling much bigger fish up way shallow on the way. It's pretty wild to see how far up into the floodplain a fish of over 20 pounds will wander. 

If you'd like to experience this fishery with me next season, it's best to book early. By mid March this year my calendar was pretty darned full and the only open dates were when I had cancelations or had to shuffle folks around. So be prepared to grab dates as early as February. 

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 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.