Rejuvenation

It was the 24th of December. A light, clean blanket of snow had carpeted the landscape and dressed the trees. It hadn't yet been sullied by the boot prints of other people; I was the first to disrupt the scene. Traversing the steep slope down to the creek, everything was tranquil and there. When I slipped my boots into the dark, cold water reached into the fabrics and padding and strained against neoprene, slowly but surely sucking the heat out. 

I'd been away from this water for a long while for a variety of reasons. The few times I had been in the last couple years never felt right. The fishing was in a bad way and so was I. If I'm unable to enjoy my time in a special place there's not much sense in being there right then. This time though the magic seemed to have returned. Perhaps it was just wonderful wintertime lack of disturbance. Spring and summer are easy and comfortable. So people that aren't really anglers are out fishing. During the early eruption of the pandemic there were more people than I cared to see down in this creek, which is frankly anyone that isn't me or the occasional friend I've invited with me. In the winter I can be assured solitude. 

As I made my first casts my mind wandered back to other moments casting into the same water: fish I'd lost, fished I'd landed... strong spring hatches, fall streamer bites. I'd done an awful lot here over the years. A take jolted me back to present. I of course missed it, I'd been day dreaming. Refocused, I worked the water in front of my carefully and thoroughly until my leader paused in the right sort of way and I set the hook on a wild brown trout. Then I kept doing that until it felt completely right again.

None of the fish I caught were really that impressive in the grand scheme of things. They weren't especially large, nor did they fight notably hard. I was in awe of them though, vocally so. I caught myself quietly saying "wow, what an animal" just under my breath when I let a long-faced male brown of about 14 inches slip back into the current. I think that's important. Don't take a good fish for granted- and I mean of any species -or you'll forever be frustrated. And let's be honest here, with very, very few exceptions there really isn't a bad fish out there.

I've been reminding myself of these lessons a lot lately, but on this day it was particularly important because I was on my home water. I'd grown far apart from my home water for a while. I haven't even been living particularly near it. I'll never fish it as hard as I used to, nor do I need to. But it would also be a shame to lose that connection. This reminded me how many connections I had in fact lost. There are a lot of places I used to fish hard that I haven't in years, places with wonderful memories and amazing fish. Sometimes looking for something bigger and better pulls too hard. Don't lose sight of the gems you found when everything was new and fresh. They're still very special. 

I followed my own tracks out that day feeling a lot better than I had in a while. I stopped on the path to look at the footprints small birds had made around some seedy grasses. They'd turned the surface of the snow into a swirling, streaking painting. It was wonderful. Take nothing for granted. 

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.

A Lone Tiger in the Bridge Pool

Cheyenne and I walked down to the Bridge Pool one dull, chilly November day. This was the first time she'd ever been to my home river with me, which made it special. Few places have had such a significant impact on my life. The Bridge Pool is pretty much the epicenter of my fly fishing world. It was quite a playground for a fly fishing obsessed teenager; a stream stolen from the Rockies and hidden in CT, just a short bike ride from home and hidden from view. 

The Bridge Pool has changed a lot over the years, but was especially different this time as the old cart bridge that was the pool's name sake was gone. The pool is still there but the bridge is gone. That was a bit sad, as I can remember many years ago going on hikes with my mother and younger brother and walking across that bridge. I can remember looking down at that pool and wondering what sort of creatures might be hiding in its depths. 

I've had a whole lot of years and chances since then to figure out exactly the sort of things that swim in that pool. I'd caught everything from crappies to 22 inch wild brown trout in there, and a whole lot in between. Today, though, the Bridge Pool would give up a fish I'd never caught within its confines before. Kneeling on the bank, with Cheyenne behind me, I cast an Ausable Ugly under an indicator into the heart of the pool. On the fifth cast, the bobber dropped and I set the hook into a substantial trout. It wasn't a trout, actually. It was a trout char hybrid; a big holdover tiger. I'd caught rogue holdover tigers and even a few wild ones out of my home water before, but never out of the bridge pool. It was a handsome specimen, though one that I didn't feel should be permitted to live there any longer. Stocked tigers are ravenous predators that can have a notable individual impact in a small system like this one.

Cheyenne and I ate that fish that night, along with a rainbow I'd caught at another river later in the day, baked wrapped in tinfoil with lemon and spices. There was a time I would have released that fish and scoffed at another angler for deciding to take it. 

I've grown a lot since I first cast a fly into the Bridge Pool.

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.

A Slow Day at Home

My home river will never be what it was when I first fished it. I’ve accepted that fact. What it means to me though will never change. There isn’t another wild trout stream nearby that runs a long distance uninterrupted by road crossings or private land. There aren’t any major trails either- access takes effort. I feel secluded when I’m there. Although the wild brown and brook trout aren’t as plentiful as they once were and stocked fish have taken hold in parts of the stream where they never used to be found, it will forever be my home river.

I paid a couple visits in December with poor results, but decided I ought to return in January. I wanted to fish it with the same simple nymphing methods that I’d first learned there. My leader was just 6 feet long, but carefully tapered down to a long 4x tippet. I’d only fish one fly and either use the end of my fly line, the leader knots, or my instinct to detect strikes. Since I haven’t nymphed this way in awhile, I can tell that my knack for this bare-bones tactic has slipped away. I’m more than a little bit rusty.  I set out to gain back those reflexes on the very water I’d developed them in the first place. 

It took me a bit to find what I thought was my groove. I reached a classic ledge run that used to have a log socked in between some boulders essentially dividing into two runs, one below and one above. A freeze followed by a flood managed to blow it out. That log was there ten years ago, when I caught my first wild brown trout out of what had been the upper run. It’s amazing how drastically things have changed since then, but there are still wild brown trout using that water and one found my Sexy Walt’s Worm to its liking. The take was subtle and almost undetectable. Not missing it bolstered my confidence. 

Then I went a very long time without catching anything. Eventually, I gave in and decided I’d go downstream to a pool I knew held some rainbows. I’d released the brown, but if I caught any rainbows they’d be coming home with me. I used to release everything I caught here and now I’m convinced I shouldn’t be. The state shouldn’t even be stocking it. Though my nymphing had been less than satisfactory for the wild fish, these naive rainbows fell right into my trap. I took four. That’s four less rainbows in the system eating dace, brookies, and macroinvertebrates. I feel bad for the fish themselves, it's not their fault. But they just shouldn’t be in this water to begin with. Some will disagree with my approach, but I’ve seen too much evidence. The negative impacts of hatchery trout are undeniable, and the fisheries managers believe us anglers are catching them and taking them out of the system anyway. “Put and take” is an absurd way to manage an ecosystem, but I’ll oblige to save even a few fingerling native brookies. The end goal, though, is for these waters not to be stocked at all. If we are going to treat trout as though they are livestock, we shouldn’t be putting them in wild streams where many, if not most, won’t even be caught and kept. And if we are going to treat trout like a resource, we need to manage that resource in a naturally sustainable way. Stocked trout die in mass every summer in waters that can't sustain them, and not before each one eats thousands of native organisms. This isn't right. 

My home water is locked in snow and undoubtedly full of ice as I write this. Hopefully I’ll be able to return there soon, before the season closes. If it closes this year. 

Until next time, 

Fish for the love of fish.

Fish for the love of places fish live.

Fish for you.

And stay safe and healthy.

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

Edited by Cheyenne Terrien

On Christmas Eve Day

Ever since I caught my first trout over 20 inches on Christmas Eve Day in 2013, a spectacular wild brown I name Grandfather, I have fished my home river on either the 23rd or 24th every year since. Rain or shine, cold or warm, I was there. None of those trips were notably bad in terms of fishing, in fact this is a reliably productive time of year for numbers and size. But the conditions on the 24th this year didn't look great. Despite the recent warm spell, I knew a few days in the 40's wouldn't be enough to really warm up the water. My home water sits in some serious topography with a lot of hemlock, it doesn't get much sun. It takes a while to warm up. Iced in banks, cold water, bluebird skies were to be expected. I could deal with the ice, it wasn't really over the water, but the combination of high barometric pressure and cold water made it likely the fish would be in a funky mood. That was the reality of the situation, I caught five fish total over two miles of river covered thoroughly, and only one wild fish. For whatever reason the holdovers were more obliging, which was especially odd as up until this trip there had seemed to be none this fall.

I started out at the bridge pool, where I caught Grandfather six years prior, the first time I've fished it on this annual trip since then. I don't fish it as often as other parts of the stream for a variety of reasons, foremost of which being that it only occasionally holds wild trout. In fact, aside from Grandfather, I've only ever caught two other wild trout there, a brown and a brookie. Other wild fish, often completely unexpected ones like a pair of crappies I caught there one day, do show up there. But on this trip I got what a more typical bridge pool resident, a holdover rainbow.

All but one fish took a Walt's Worm. The outlier took a BHHESH. Typical. I might fish midges here next time, maybe that would have done better in that high pressure and could water. But I doubt it. I've fished Zebra Midges and WD40's plenty there and can count on one hand the number of fish they caught. It's mostly a caddis and stonefly game in the winter. But I've improved as a nympher in recent years so it is possible I'd be able to present small midges more effectively than I did in the past.

The one wild brown trout I caught wasn't at all big, but I was pleased about the way I caught her and she was an incredibly beautiful fish. It is all too easy on water you've fished hundreds of times before to think after a couple drifts through a lie you've been thorough enough, and I do fall into that more than I should. I made as many drifts through the lie as I normally would but felt I was missing something. I changed my position ever so slightly and altered my cast and I caught a fish because of that. Just as easily I could have moved on, as I have done many times before.

That moment was the high of the day, and I rounded the next bend thinking things may be on the up-swing.

That wasn't the case.

Instead, I walked right into a situation I didn't want to and wouldn't wish on anyone. I won't, I can't go into real detail. Suffice to say, I was forced to make the hardest decision I've ever made and I will never quite be the same for it. I think I made the right choice, but it will be a long time before I stop thinking about it. When you spend many or most of your days in the outdoors, you never know exactly what the world is going to throw at you.
 May you all have the strength to deal with anything you stumble into, and make the toughest decisions with the soundest judgment and kindest intention.

Until next time.

Fish for the love of fish.

Fish for the love of places fish live.

Fish for you.

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

The Homewater Turnaround

There's a certain point in December when my home water goes from fishing anywhere from pretty mediocre to downright terrible to fishing anywhere from good to "drop everything, it is on fire". That standard has changed over the years there, my favorite stream isn't at all as good as it used to be, but when it gets really good in late December I try to make time whenever I see a good bite window shaping up. The regular 40 fish days are gone but I can still get two dozen with maybe a big one or two in a couple miles of water if I'm on top of my game.

The two big factors determining when a late December bite window is likely are rainfall and air temperature. Both impact shelf ice, and that's the one thing that hampers a good bite most severely. If the fish are under shelf ice, you aren't getting to them. If there isn't shelf ice, if the water is a little stained after a rainfall, and if there have been some great than 40 degree days in the last week, I know I can expect good action. Tightline nymphing is the game and rarely ever is it necessary to use anything other than a Walt's Worm or a BH Hare's Ear Soft Hackle. My near eidetic memory of where each fish I've ever caught in this stream was sitting also keeps me in the game. The population density is low, catching a fish every 20 yards would be incredible, the water is dynamic and the fish spooky so it is all too easy to make a mistake in a critical prime lie and blow the chance. The first drift can be a throwaway but the second better not be, and if you think you can just stand upright right next to a run to fish it you are sorely mistaken. My home water is, on paper, the sort of stream that doesn't demand a very stealthy approach. And yet it is the stream that taught me everything I needed to know about approaching a trout's lie.

On the 16th conditions lined up, and though it was a little bit on the early side, I went knowing I'd likely catch fish. This buttery fellow did not dispute:

I fished three flies this day, two at a time. A sz. 12 Walt's Worm was always on, a sz. 14 Frenchie and sz. 14 BHHESH took turns as the dropper. Here are the tallies:
Walt's: 6
Frenchie: 0
BHHESH: 1
That's a pretty typical distribution on my home water. A large BHHESH on the point would probably ave done about as well as the Walt's though. I can attribute my first 40 trout day to that fly, on this very water in 2011. I could still point out where each significant fish from that day was lying.

Until next time.

Fish for the love of fish.

Fish for the love of places fish live.

Fish for you.

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

Home River Parts Unknown

My home river is the place I learned how to read moving water. It's where I first started lifting rocks and looking at what was living on and under them in terms of fish food. It was the first place I caught a wild trout, then the first place I caught a wild trout over 20 inches. I've gotten to watch my home river change over the eight years or so I've known it, and I've had to deal with some heartbreak on it as much as I have triumph. Though it isn't the closest body of water to where I live, it's where I feel most at home. But of the many fishable miles of my home water, there are stretches I visit very infrequently, and even parts, as much as half of it, that I have never made a cast into at all. On the river I know better than any other, there are still stretches that I don't know at all. Some will stay that way, I have no intention of casting into every pocket or pool or standing on every bit of bank. I believe I owe it to the stream that has given me everything to leave some places untouched. But there are parts of it that I either haven't fished much or haven't fished at all. One of them, above my favorite stretch, I call "The Unknown". It is a messy, tangled stretch of water a mile long, some small parts of it I have fished a time or two, others I haven't even seen. The river's character is different here, the substrate and structure not what is is downstream, nor the forest around it. Whereas below is healthy mixed forest with lots of hemlock and big old oaks, upstream is all hardwoods with dense undergrowth at its thickest right along the stream. Long, flat, deep pools with short runs and pocket water stretches in between also contrast from the water below where the largest pool is more like a big pocket.

The fishing is unquestionably harder here too, in part because the structure both demands long, gentle casts and forbids the angler from actually being able to do that sort of thing. What I really ought to do is bring a light spinning outfit into this stretch of river. Adding to the difficulty is a dramatic lack of fish. There is more insect life and bait fish in The Unknown, and lots of good holding water, but it suffers from being closer to stocking points than the stretch I prefer to fish. My home water really taught me how destructive stocking can be. When I started fishing it I needed to fish no more than half a mile in a day to catch a very solid number of wild fish. When I started fishing it, it hadn't been many years since a fish migration barrier on the lower end had been altered allowing stocked trout from downstream the ability to move up. There were already stocked trout making there way downstream from miles above at three other stocking locations, so now the stream's wonderful wild trout population was getting sandwiched. Since I started fishing here, I've watched the range in which wild brown and brook trout are most abundant shrink and move upstream little by little. Now, starting from where I nearly always do when I fish my home river, I may fish a half a mile of river before I even catch the first wild brown, and the wild brookies are all but completely extirpated. There are undoubtedly some other factors at play, but it's hard to deny that the stocking surpasses the natural biomass, and the stockers, which average a little larger than the wild browns and much bigger than the brookies, put undue strain on the population. And then, being ill adapted to live in the wild, they die either in the summer or the winter. Putting more fish in this river has resulted in fewer trout year round and even fewer trout overtime as anglers are less and less inclined to fish out the stockers from the pools they're dumped in on opening day, letting them take over other parts of the stream until the die. I look back at every stocked trout I've released that I legally could have removed from this stream as a failure on my part to protect the river I care most about. The Unknown has been getting infiltrated by more hatchery trout far longer than the two miles of water below, so it just doesn't yield the same number of wild trout. I can count the number of wild trout I've caught here on one hand. Actually, I can count it with only one finger. And, spoiler alert, my most recent visit did not change that although I managed to avoid skunking.

Despite the low yield, high frustration character of The Unknown, I've become more attracted to it for one specific reason. I've learned over the last few years that in any give river it is the stretches with the fewest wild trout that hold the largest wild trout. Though I haven't encountered another brown over 20 in my home water since Grandfather, if there is anywhere that is likely to be hiding another, it is this overall really unappealing stretch of water. Even if it doesn't hold any big wild trout, I owe it to myself to fish something on my home river that I don't know yet, something I'm not as comfortable with. I'll leave a lot untouched, but I want to know as much as I can. So, though it won't be this winter because the place freezes and there isn't anywhere I'd rather be casting to small stream wild browns in December and January when the conditions are right than the other parts of this stream, when bugs start getting active and chances of find the larger fish rising to paraleps or hendricksons improve, I will be there. I might even be there to catch the fish nobody thought of, where nobody goes.

Until next time.

Fish for the love of fish.

Fish for the love of places fish live.

Fish for you.

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

Winter at Home

Home means different things to different people. Too me, home is a specific small mountain stream in Eastern CT, sheltered by hemlock and laurel and hidden in a steep walled canyon. Dace, fallfish, sunfish, and wild brown and brook trout swim in its dark, turbulent waters, and only a handful of anglers will ply those waters during the course of a year. My home isn't the most hospitable. Summers bring warm and low water and trout hiding under rocks. Winters bring extremely cold water, shelf and anchor ice, and blow outs the take down trees and scour the banks, forming ice and log jams, moving huge rocks and changing the shape of the stream in mere hours.

There have been winters during which I haven't been able to actually fish my home river for as much as two months. There was just too much ice to make it worth it, or even too much snow to safely get to and from the stream. This winter, though, has provided me a number of chances to fish. The water was still cold and the fish very much in winter mode, but I know this stream and I know it's fish. I also know how to approach and present flies to where the fish are holding. And I know that no matter how well I fish, I'm not going to catch a lot of trout despite covering a lot of water. But the ones I do catch are usually going to be of above average size. This post includes photos from three different trips out of six I made in January and February. In all six trips combined I caught a dozen wild brown trout. All 12 were larger than eight inches. A few were larger than a foot in length.

Because of its location and structure, my home water stays far colder than many streams. A general assumption is that liquid water must be above freezing, but this is not the case for moving water and this plays a part in fish handling. Ever get ice in your guides when you know the air temperature is above 32 degrees? I have. This happens when the water is below 32 but won't freeze because it is in motion. The water pauses long enough in you guides and on your line that the crystallization process is catalyzed. It is important to keep with in mind when handling fish, because the moment you take a fish out of water that's just below freezing and that water stops moving it will crystallize on the fish's skin, fins, and gills, and it may prove fatal. If you are getting ice in your guides, if you see ice forming on rocks on the bottom of the stream in fast water (anchor ice), or if you take the temperature of the water and its between 31 and 33 degrees, don't remove the fish from the water for more than one second no matter how warm the air is. A few of the bigger and more colorful trout I caught during these trips were caught during tines when I knew the air was above freezing, but I was still getting ice in the guides. I didn't even remove those fish from the water to extract my hook. I either let them shake it or poked it out with my rod tip. I am so careful now largely because I wasn't in the past. When it was pointed out to me I felt the ones doing so were trying to clarify their superiority, and I didn't react in a way I am proud of. I know now exactly why I was criticised. I was being provided with information, not being put down. That information has undoubtedly lead me to kill fewer fish that I didn't want to.

It is for fish like the one below that I put up with iced guides, leaky waders, shelf ice, cold hands, frequent tangles, and being forced to do nothing but fish extremely heavy nymphs. Panning for gold in the dead of winter is taxing, but when it pays, it is really special.

Winters at my home are often strenuous. But I wouldn't have it any other way.

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

An Intermission: It is Rather Cold

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

Thanks for joining the adventure, and tight lines.

I've been home for a week now. I'm still a little well tanned for January, and I'm still not used to fishing in the cold. Which isn't to say I haven't been fishing. I've been out there, getting cold finger tips and catching a few fish. My first outing back was a foggy one. I saw some brookies. My mission was to get my January dry fly fish, and I stuck steadfast to dries despite absolutely no action with them. It was pretty warm, the air was still, the fog was thick... I am not sure why I couldn't coax a char to rise.

 The next day I just continued my hunt for a dry fly fish. It was colder, windy, and brighter... to my eye a markedly worse winter day to try to coax a salmonid to the surface. I was wrong. I fished for less time, only fished one stream, and I did successfully bring brook trout to the surface. This January is my 48th consecutive month of catching at least one salmonid on a dry fly. 4 years. I do wonder when this run will end. It can't go one forever.

Big parts of the stream I was fishing look like what you see in the photo to the left. Getting through that stuff is a riot. Impatience leads to holes in waders and spooked fish. A good bow and arrow cast is necessary. Persistence even more so. Some of the biggest brook trout in the stream live in sections like this, in the past I'd caught fish in excess of a foot long in here. This time something rather startling showed up. I was swinging a parachute Adams across the tail of a run when a monstrous brook trout appeared, sidled up to the fly, missed, missed again, then didn't miss. I lifted the rod... maybe a little too quickly. The fish turned away violently, taking the fly and leaving me to pick my jaw up off the ground. That fish was every bit of 16 inches.


Upstream, in more hospitable terrain for a bipedal hairless ape, I knelt by a pool and shot my Sturdy's Fancy into a seem downstream and across the pool. A couple seconds into the fly's drift, a snout captured it. I defeated January.

Salvilinus fontinalis

I walked away from that outing with a huge smile on my face. I had pretty much forgotten the huge brookie that had stolen my Adams.

That was the last warm-ish day we've had around here.

I could be out on the ice right now if I were so inclined,
whereas that day there were ponds with enough open water to fish plenty effectively.

 Before shelf ice had started to form I payed a visit to my home river for the first time of 2019. It wasn't great. I caught one rainbow. The air was too cold for my fingers and too cold for taking fish out of the water. Between doing jumping jacks on the bank and cramming my hands in my armpits I made half hearted casts. Had I been fishing with more intent, maybe I wouldn't have lost the biggest living wild brown I've seen in my home river in a few years.

She was on for a few seconds.

She was every bit of 18 inches.

She left me with a limp line, and my jaw once again on the ground.

I went back last night. That big brown was still there. And I was probably still not fishing with enough confidence and intent. She remains unmolested. And I remain in a state of unrest. Loosing the brown just made loosing the brookie sting more.

It is winter. Big fish have a way of appearing suddenly in the winter. And even though I know that they are there, and that this is one of the better seasons to seek out those bigger trout and char, I still never expect to encounter one. And big fish have a way of disappearing just as suddenly and surprisingly as they appear.