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. 

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Nymphing Pike, Getting Slapped by Catfish

Not all that eat nymphs are trout. If I had one recommendation for multi-species fly fisherman, it would be to learn the ways of the nymph, as in depth as possible. My biggest largemouth? Nymph eater, bigger than 8lbs. Most of my biggest fly rod smallies? Nymph eaters. Fly carping without an understanding of aquatic insects and how to fish nymphs isn't going to yield great results. My best bowfin ate a dragonfly nymph. When I'm trying to catch a new species in freshwater, odds are knowing a thing or two about nymphing is going to help.

That being said, I don't think you need to fish nymphs for pike. And yet, while hoping for smallmouth and catfish a few nights ago, that skinny little gator up there at my Hare's Ear in 10 feet of water. Not what I expected. I would have been less surprised to get a hogchoker, a flatfish I'd encountered there in the past via netting baitfish.

 I alternated between fishing just an artificial fly and fishing one with a worm on it. I would not be so silly as to call the latter fly fishing, but even when I fish bait a lot of the time it is a fly rod that I use to do it. I feel I learn much from it, dirty though it may be. Tonight the fly only took that small pike. Live bait won out. No surprise. Smallmouth, bluegill, American eel, channel catfish, and white catfish all were duped by the old standby of baits.

Noah' lifer white catfish.

 After dark the whiteflies came out. It was a hatch spinnerfall combo, and these bugs did something I hadn't seen: they molted into their spinner form on the water instead of in the brush, leaving little dun husks all over the surface. The lack of rise activity told me they were pretty safe doing this. Were it the Housatonic the smallies would have been all over those molting duns.

This photo in every way represents what catching eels on hook and line is like. It stops being fun almost immediately. 

Well after dark I heard and saw some of a fish jump very much unlike ones I have seen before in the river, namely carp. This one, I am almost certain, was a sturgeon. I have seen one in the water in the past but it has been a while. 

I'll leave you with some catfish slapping fun. I think this little guy has been lipped once or twice before. He knew were to throw his tail. 

Night Fishing an Impossibility

The nocturnal habits of the wild brown trout on my 'part time' home water have continued to befuddle me. I unlock little pieces of the puzzle every now and then, but less frequently than I'd like. More nights than I'd like to admit, I've walked away not really sure I'd learned anything useful.

Last night wasn't one of those nights.

I caught nothing. I never even heard any evidence that big fish were around and active at all. But I learned a lot more than I had on previous trips. It had everything to do with biomass, and it didn't teach me how or where or when I could catch a big trout at night on this river. I learned a lot about why I almost certainly wouldn't at night at this time of the year.

And it has everything to do with biomass.

To many, it is a cardinal sin to turn on a bright white light while night fishing. But if you are smart, you will for some amount of time every night you fish. Not to tie on a fly, tippet, or undo a tangle. For that I use ambient light as much as possible, and a concealed flash light whenever necessary. I can tie on most larger flies in the dark without turning on a light of any kind. But a bright light is a very useful tool at night, simply because it lets you see what's there. And if I hadn't spent nearly an hour with a light on seeing what was there, I would have learned very little about the goings on last night. 

What I discovered when I first turned on my light last night, was that I had been standing in a blizzard. There were warning signs... the feeling of tiny things dancing on my arm hairs, thing in my nostrils that just didn't belong there, an all too frequent bit of "protein" in my mouth that got there of its own volition. Yup, there was a midge hatch going on. An apocalyptic midge hatch. Breathing became perilous any time I had a light on for more than 15 seconds. I've seen some midge hatches in my day. Midge hatches so strong it made it look like a light fog was gathering. Midge hatches that were actually audible. But nothing like this.

The biomass was not limited to the air either. The emerging midge pupa and swimming freshwater shrimp of were so thick all a trout would have to do to eat its weight in the course of the night would be to open its mouth for two seconds every other minute. Add to that about 25 fish fry per square foot in any slow moving water and there is very little reason for any trout to need to eat a big streamer or mouse or wet fly under these conditions, and anything small would just be lost in the maelstrom of actual food drifting and swimming around.  

So. I'm still not dialed in on getting big trout at night there. But I know I can't do it at this time of year in that stretch. 

The Mayflies Hatch and the Trout Take Notice

I was on my home river again on Monday. There are two times of year when magic happens there. Magic can happen any time of year, but in spring and early winter it is infinitely more likely. The springtime magic most frequently comes in the form of a prolific Paraleps hatch that gets every trout in the stream looking up, even the rare 15-18 inch giants. So I've been going there looking to catch the magic hatch. I almost materialized on Monday. For the first time this year duns were coming off and the fish took notice, although that only lasted for about half an hour.

Leading up to the first rise I saw I fished nymphs. Specifically, Walt's Worm with an orange hotspot. The water was a lot warmer than the previous outing from the start so it did not take long at all to get consistent action. A bunch of wild browns, a couple rainbows, a smattering of salmon... it was a good bite.

Then, as I climbed over a new log jam that had created a big slow pool where a set of runs had been, I saw what I had been waiting for.  A large riser, gently taking duns. Alright, time to back off and watch.

I sat. I watched. I made edits to my leader, greased it up, and tied on my Paraleptophlebia Dun. Then I sat some more. And watched some more.

Then, when I felt all was right, I made a cast. I gave it six drifts. The fish rose twice between them, so I knew it had not spooked. I reeled up and sat and watched again. In that time I changed flies twice. It seems silly to tie a fly on and take it off and switch before making another cast, but sometimes seeing the fly tied on is what it takes for me to fully make up my mind. My end choice was a size 12 Quigley Cripple. Why fish a size 12 fly over a size 18-16 hatch? These small stream fish aren't as picky as trout on large pressured rivers, sometimes it takes a bigger fly to get noticed. Three drifts and the fly was taken. I waited for the fish to turn and lifted the rod. It was a heavy fish, and up until I got a really clear look at it I thought for sure it was going to be the fish of the year for this stream. Alas, it was just a large stocker. I thanked it for playing along and giving me an exciting fight and continued upstream, picking a couple really good fish on nymphs before getting to the next pool.

Once there,  saw what I thought was two different risers. I switched to the Paralep Dun and caught the first, a small brown, on the first presentation. I dried the fly and made the cast to the larger fish. Again, one cast, one rise, one wild trout to hand. A gorgeous one. I was giddy at this point. This is what this hatch is all about to me.

To my surprise, when I looked up there was still on riser in the pool, in the exact place of the one I had just caught. I retied with a Quigly. One cast, one rise, one fish. This time it was a holdover rainbow, the same on I had just caught days before in the same spot, and back in December in the same pool too. This time I opted not to take a photo as at this point I think I have bothered it enough, so here's a different photo from the last time I caught him.

Unfortunately the hatch was tapering off at that point and I wouldn't catch anymore fish on dries. The nymph bite remained steady, however.

The fish I ended the outing on was the biggest brook trout I'd caught in my home river in 4 years, a stunning foot long fat female. I wish I could show you a photo of her, I really do, but sometimes the fish does what the fish wants and I'm left sitting there holding my camera wishing I hadn't taken the fly out before taking a photo. Regardless, a great ending to a fair day. No magic, but that may well just be waiting till next time.

Homewater Humdinger: A Few Days, a Ton of Trout.

This week has been one of those where I've had so many trips with so many being to different places that I've got a backlog of really good stuff that is all just awesome, but too disjointed to make a single post per outing. Fortunately today's fishing was relatively mediocre where I chose/had to be, and that leaves me with a void I can fill. And it just so happens that I have a ton of stuff from a bunch of trips, both short and long, that I have taken to my home river since the season opened.

The first couple of outings were really short, and I basically just concentrated on putting a hurting on stockers. I really would prefer this stream not get stocked as much as it does, so I do sometimes kill these fish. But early in the season when they aren't fully adjusted to stream life I just release them downstream from the deep holes where they were stocked. They have a hard time not getting eaten by the myriad of predators that just love these easy meals, which takes them out of the system while also feeding fish eating predators... or at least that's the idea. And it is lent credence by the fact that heron and mink activity is always much greater downstream from the stocking locations after I do my redistributing!  If more people fished here on opening day and took everything, I wouldn't bother doing this.

This year the size of the stocked trout I caught was quite exceptional, and I'm not going to lie I did have some fun beating up on these chubby critters with mice and streamers. I actually caught my biggest rainbow too, a fat ugly broodstock male with a gnarly kype.

To make things interesting, on each day I went down to harass the stockers, I caught one wild fish out of the school. Most pleasantly, the first wild brookie from my home river since last summer! What these wild fish were doing in the meat market I have no idea. I just hope they have the good sense to avoid powerbait and worms on eagle claw hooks.

Very much to my surprise all of my outing produced a fair number of bright salmon smolts, as well as juvenile salmon of similar size that were still in parr markings. These fish are always pleasant to encounter, giving spectacularly acrobatic fights, basically a small scale version of what they would do if they ever were to return as adults. I wish them all a safe journey and tell them I will see them again in four years when I let them swim away. I know they won't be coming back, but I can't help it. 

Friday was wild day. I fished two and a half miles of my home river, prospecting every bit of that water that was worth fishing with nymphs and small dead drifting streamers. It was an exciting day because all four major insect types that trout feed on (midges, caddis, stoneflies, mayflies), and I saw the first Paraleps hatch of the year! The water is still too high and a little cold for the fish to take notice of the few duns, but the nymph bite was OK. With the water as high as it is it can be difficult to nymph as effectively as I would were it about 35cfs lower, so I had to cover more water for fewer fish. That doesn't mean I didn't catch a ton of trout, but I didn't catch as many in that long distance as I know I could have were the bite really on.

The first fish spoiled me. From that beautiful, good sized brown it went to a mix of small browns, salmon in various stages of immaturity, and the odd rainbow. For two miles. I did miss some that stung a little and definitely wasted good water fishing it "the wrong way".

Then, suddenly, I found what I was looking for. Fishing the slick behind a large uplifted slab of bedrock, I caught a small salmon par in the mid section of the seem next to a branch, which I thought was the best looking lie in the area. Not fully deterred I dropped my Walt's Worm in the roiling water at the top and in two seconds felt a jarring hit. I lifted, and the culprit, a wild brown of over a foot long, suddenly decided that this whole staying underwater business just wasn't for it.

This stream is about as close to a mountain stream as you can get in a state without hills over 2,500  feet, and it's water doesn't sit around waiting for much. It goes down and it goes down fast and cold. It isn't at all uncommon to catch sizable browns in very heavy riffle here even when the water temperature is below 40. The result is fish that fight like hell. And this one was one of those fights that will be ingrained in my mind forever. It wasn't the most colorful brown I caught, and if I play things right it won't be my biggest home water wild trout this season, but damn did it ever fly! Over and over and over. High vertical leaps, splashy somersaults, tail walks that took it 10 feet across the run. It didn't even tire quickly, the whole battle was tooth and nail. This one was one of those trout I had to land, and the fact that it was doing what it was doing both scared the crap out of me and inspired awe. I really would have loved to have had a camera rolling at 960fps on this one, from hookset to hand. Not a dull moment.

That wasn't the last fish I caught, I still had a good amount of water in my planned hike/fish, but none really compared. All gems, but often I'm looking for the bigger ones.

With the water dropping and warming I'll be back sooner rather than later to catch my favorite hatch, the Paraleptophlebia adobtiva. Hopefully I hit it right. I failed to last year.