Ghosts of Winters Past

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you to my Patrons; Erin, David, John, Elizabeth, Brandon, Christopher, Shawn, Mike, Sara, Franky, Geof, Luke, Noah, Justin, Sean, Tom, Mark, Jake, Chris, Oliver, oddity on Display, Sammy, and Cris & Jennifer, Hunter, Gordon, Thomas, Trevor, Eric, Evan, Javier, Ryan, Dar, Eric, Truman, and Collin for making Connecticut Fly Angler possible. If you want to support this blog, look for the Patreon link at the top of the right side-bar in web version.

Bluegills in a Blizzard

 Sometimes I just have to say screw it and go fishing regardless of the weather. I’ve basically been doing this professionally, anyway. Neither snow nor sleet nor heavy rain nor tornado warning has kept me off the water. Frankly I enjoy fishing in bad weather. It excites and rejuvenates me. And if I’m honest, it also makes me feel at least a little bit badass. So when Connecticut was being pummeled by a gnarly snowstorm on the first of February, I was going fishing. I wasn’t going to drive anywhere, it was too nasty. I wasn’t going to fish open water either, I just didn’t feel like it. I was going ice fishing. The closest options are all pretty mediocre hardwater fisheries. There are plenty of fish in them, they just seem trickier to ice fish than other bodies of water I’ve been on. But there was one place that was as near a guarantee as I could get and it was within walking distance. 

So I set out into the winter wonderland. The howling wind blew both the snow that was falling and that which was already on the ground. I could hear plow trucks in the distance and the wind in powerlines and trees, but not much other than that. In about 15 minutes I was at my destination. Spudbar in hand, I cleared a bit of snow from the inside of a vertical concrete tube about four feet in diameter. Then I spudded a hole in the 5 inches of ice underneath that. I then lowered my little tungsten jig down there. A few minutes later it came back up with a bluegill attached. A few minutes after that I got another. They were all tiny, but I’d caught some fish and that’s all I really needed.

 I looked out over the rest of the pond this little weird culvert-like pipe was in. Streaks of snow whipped across the ice. I’d never caught much any time I tried to fish any other spot in this place. I briefly considered trying along the dam somewhere, but decided to head back home. 

I walked back in my own footsteps. Though they weren’t even 45 minutes old, they were already just shapeless potholes in the ever deepening snow. 

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

Unavoidable Tigers

 The state seems to have stocked rather a lot of tiger trout in the fall of 2020 and those buggers definitely spread pretty far beyond where they were dumped. After the big snowfall in mid December, I made my way to my old "part-time home river" to look for one of its big wild brown trout. The magic of this river and its fish are their apparent immunity to temperature. In fact, the colder and worse the weather is, the better it seems to fish. Even on 30 degree days with blowing snow, I've gotten large browns to chase big streamers in this odd little river. 

I'd been on such a single hook fly kick all year that I decided this day I'd fish nothing but a Drunk & Disorderly. I've raved about the D&D for years. Back in 2015 I saw a video of Tommy Lynch tying his signature fly and it just looked so unique I had to try it. A few sloppy attempts later, I had something fishable. Fish moved to it so unabashedly it altered my streamer fishing for ever. That fly and the Heifer Groomer taught me the magic of action in a trout streamer. It was something I'd not been paying enough attention to prior. The D&D had taken a few solid fish in this stream over the years so it was a perfectly reasonable choice this time.

A few pools into my outing I had a violent slash on the surface. I was sure it was a good brown but I blew it completely. On the next cast it came back, though, and I was sure it wasn't a brown. It is extremely rare in this river that one of the wild trout gives me more than one shot. Indeed it wasn't a brown. It was a tiger, my fifth of the year. I rolled my eyes when I realized what it was. These fish are too easy when you find them.

Less than 50 yards further came yet another violent take and yet another tiger trout. This was getting absurd.

The irony of these tiger trout being so abundant is that they'd moved away from anywhere that gets fished routinely. The state's whole premise with fish like this is providing fisherman the opportunity to catch something new and "cool." I just wanted to catch something that had actually been born in the river. Instead I was getting pellet fed hybrid truck trout. Eventually I did find something wild, though not as big as I'd have liked. Just one small wild brown trout fell to the D&D this day. But it was a pretty fish, at least. 

The stretch of river I was fishing is managed as catch and release only. I wonder how often the fisheries managers think about the fact that their hatchery-raised trout are dying every winter and summer, needing to be replenished twice a year. All the while wild brown trout and few but not non-existent native brook trout manage to survive each year's worst weather. It's almost as if it's a waste of resources.

Many fisherman, unfortunately, would just think their fish were being taken away from them if the state stopped stocking rivers like this. The culture that has developed around trout in the Northeast is an unfortunate one. It comes to the detriment of the quality of our wild and native fisheries, and worsens the experiences for those that are really in search of what makes fishing exciting.

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

Central PA Wild Rainbows and Joe's 90th (Pt. 2)

Late Friday evening we made our way to The State Theatre right in town to watch a screening of "Live The Stream", and visit with Joe Humphreys and his family. This was the reason we had come to State College this time... the fishing was secondary.

The documentary was spectacular. The producers, Meigan and Lucas Bell, managed to capture an awful lot of what makes Joe such an exceptional person and put it together in a beautiful way that tells the story well. I was hooked in from the first moments. A scene shows Joe crawling through think brush to get into position on a tiny brook trout stream, them performing what can only be described as a miraculous cast. This hit home for me in a big way because it was watching a video of Joe fishing a small brookie stream that planted the seed that grew into my obsession for seeking out these types of waters and the incredible little animals that swim in them. Joe Humphreys is honestly probably the best small stream caster alive today, and quite possibly in history. The firsts minutes of the film set the standard high for me, and the rest did not disappoint. If you fly fish, you should make an effort to see this movie. Screenings can be found on the website, www.livethestreamfilm.com, and hopefully it will be coming out in DVD form in the near future. It is worth getting on the mailing list.

The theater was packed. We exchanged pleasantries with Joe and his daughters and Mike and I got a photo with him, but it was tough to carry a conversation with so many others looking to meet him and chat with him. One of these times, hopefully, I will get to actually sit and chat with the man. He turned 90 the very next day. Still tough as nails.

The next morning, we planned to fish right up until the snow started then run out ahead of it and get back to CT before the storm got there. We went to the stretch of spring creek we had started at the day before. This time Mike went up and I went down. I did not go far before bringing quite sizable, though beat up, wild rainbow to the dropper nymph. Then a much cleaner smaller one on the tail fly.

I had gotten into the rhythm quickly, which was ideal, then went through a lot of water without a touch which wasn't, but I know why and it didn't have to do with how I was fishing that water... the fish had moved a little bit. I figured out the type of water I should be fishing and was into fish again. Eventually I stuck one that I though was going to by a nice brown. It turned out to be a fat, egg laden rainbow of hatchery origin. Not ideal, but a hard fighter that made me work for it. 

I continued downstream, steadily picking off small rainbows, all from the same sort of water. I was expecting at some point to hit something pretty big, and eventually I thought I had. I picked up on tiny rainbow from this seem and on the very next cast set into something heavy and very authoritative. I couldn't stop this fish. It stuck to the seem for a few moments before running out into the middle of the pool in the fast water, where it freaked out for a second, then just slowly started moving up. I put a lot of pressure on the fish trying to turn it. I hadn't even seen it yet. It turned fast and just tore off downstream. I gave chase. At that point, it came to the surface. It was a rainbow, maybe 16 inches... hooked in the tail. I stumbled, lost tension, and the hook popped out. I was very disappointed, not to have lost a 16 inch bow but because that fish hadn't turned out to be the behemoth brown I thought it was before I saw it. Weirdly though after that point I stopped catching rainbows altogether and got only browns.

I should add at this point that I had been wading like a complete madman the entire time. Going way too deep, crossing in crazy spots, bouncing my way to rocks that I could cast from... right before I turned back upstream I almost got myself in a bit of a predicament. I had my eyes on water downstream and just sort of bounced down through a stretch of moderate speed wast-belly button deep water with a steep bank on either side. Eventually it became clear that I wasn't getting to the water I wanted to, it just kept getting deeper. The bank I was next to was just peoples yard and I honestly wasn't sure I could make it back to the other side. I turned to see if going back up was an option. Nope, too deep and too swift. I briefly considered just climbing the bank and crossing somebody's back lawn. But I looked at the curve of the river and thought I could possibly just be on the deep side. That did turn out to be the case, I barely got across without fully soaking the bottom half of my jacket. My pocket hand warmers did get soaked through. Rivers can be deceptive. Be careful, especially in the dark and in the winter. This is a good demonstration of the kind of thing that can really screw you while night fishing, and it's the reason I don't night fish stretches of river I haven't thoroughly explored during the day.

As we pulled out of Milesburg and got on the highway it was snowing pretty well, but we were just chasing the leading edge. As we got close to an area where we had found a quite exceptional small stream, Mike suggested we stop just to get some photos: fresh snow on the hemlocks and laurels, dark winter water, it would definitely be beautiful and worth the stop. Naturally we ended up rigging rods and trying to find a few brook trout. Yeah, it was beautiful... but it's hard to pass up even a brief opportunity to catch something special. 

In the back of my mind was this one pool we had stopped at when we came here last August. I decided I was going to fish that pool. I remembered what it looked like and where the fish had been sitting at the pool and planned my approach out in my head before I even got there. I had to cross the creek twice to get up there which was fun. I made one crossing on a log and the other on partly submerged rocks (keep in mind I didn't have waders on). Then I had to shove myself though briers and rhododendron to get to where the pool was. I was going to approach it from the opposite side we had before this time. It was a difficult approach, most of that bank was steep and undercut, excepting just one spit of rocks which was my objective. I basically Tarzaned my way to that casting spot. From there, my battle had just begun. The deep bucket of the pool was upstream from me right under a big hemlock bough. Downstream, more limbs were there to catch a typical back cast. I was at an advantage here using my 5wt. I would have the muscle to power a cast through the gap I was presented with.  But I would have to compensate for the very overkill 9ft length of the rod (only stick I brought). I made an initial bow and arrow cast just to get the fly out there. Then I used the water to load the rod and made the lowest back cast I could, then hauled hard and shot my Ausable Ugly 20 feet upstream underneath and past that bough. I let the fly sink, stripping line to maintain contact, then saw my fly line jump. I set the hook and quickly had a stunning brook trout at hand. 

For me, that was the fish of the trip.  

Mike and I made it to CT before the storm got there. It has been very cold since and the only fishing I've done in the intervening time has been on the ice. The rain yesterday ruined that and has blown out all the rivers. Hopefully this weekend will provide some opportunities. 

But there is a lot more Florida content to come, so stay tuned. 

The First Mouse Bite of the Year

The TMA's have been stocked. For me, that means it's time to throw mice. It doesn't matter how cold it is, these dumb pellet heads will probably hit mice. And if I'm  going to target freshly stocked trout, it's going to be on my terms, not theirs. How ever I can get the most enjoyment out of them, that's how I'll target them, and for me big foam topwater flies are definitely the most fun way to catch trout that aren't ready to take an Elkhair Caddis or Parachute Adams yet. 

Yesterday was a doom and gloom forecast kind of day. Big snow. I was in agreement with the forecast, it looked like it was going to be a big one. And then the low did what it looked like it would do last week, track far to the south. And we have maybe 3 inches. Maybe. 

I expected to fish in falling snow yesterday. I did, but not as much as I had hoped for. Mostly, it was just cold.  I tried to nymph for a little while, just to get an idea of where the fish had been stocked. That proved to be ineffective, so I tied on a woolly bugger, found fish, switched to the mouse, and got the first mouse munchers of the season. 

Not long after I released that rainbow, I got a little surprise. Phil Sheffield showed up. Phil and I have nearly crossed pathes on the water a few times. We were going to fish albies with our mutual friend Mark Phillipe last fall, then I slept in. But finally we found ourselves on the same water at the same time, and we had a grand old time, catching some trout, enjoying the day, having some laughs. This is the kind of day that sums up stocked trout fishing for me. If you can't do it with crazy streamers and mouse flies and with a great friend, why even bother. Right?

CT Steelhead... Sort Of

I always like to try to fish during the first real snow of the season. Sure, we've had a flurry or two, but nothing that accumulated. A real first snow is one that sticks to everything, paints the whole landscape in pristine white, and truly says that winter is here. That's the kind of snow I really want to fish in. It's funny though, I love the snow while it's falling. But shortly after the the storm is done I start to think "Okay, how many days will it take for this crap to melt?"; for snow is only pristine and cleansing for a short time. While it is, why not bask in it? And so out I went into the cold yesterday,
knowing that the trout cared a tad less about the temperature than I did.

Snow, for some reason, makes me want to throw streamers. I usually want to throw streamers above all else on anything but smaller streams, and days when rising fish are frequent; but in the snow it just feels all the more, well, right. The snow increases contrast, making the water look darker and deeper than normal. In those dark depths there must be a monster, and I've always felt that the real monsters don't mess around with midges. You have to feed them something more substantial.

I fished through one stretch that I haven't really put much time into. I've been told that it holds large brown trout. I haven't found them yet. A 5 inch Meal Ticket found itself near every logjam, every cut bank, sliding through every run, jigging through every hole. No grabs, no follows, no boils. It's hard for me not to think there just weren't fish there. So I moved upriver bout  mile. I changed flies, downsizing to an orange and olive Woolly Bugger. Large single hook streamers have been really productive around there lately and I always have confidence in the orange and olive bugger. The first take of the day was a in a rolling, boiling head of a smooth deep run that looks good but never gave me a fish. I watch the fish charge and grad the fly, going straight downstream, and so set the hook upstream. The fish launched, showing itself to be a bright and clean holdover rainbow.

A few pools upriver I got another solid grab, though this one I did not see. I felt it and set the hook before I even looked up, just in time to see another rainbow, this one about 16 inches, go airborne. Catching bright, acrobatic, healthy rainbows on gaudy streamers in a steady snowfall? It felt a little bit like I was on a steelhead river. Just a little bit.

The snow monster wild brown I was looking for alluded me. But he can't hide forever!

A Hike in Deep Snow

I went out in the woods the other day. It was cloudy and warm, but the snow remained. Travel was very slow, but I just had to get out. I trudged across some tiny creeks and ridges, in search only of solitude. There was a lot more snow than I thought, the runoff is going to be rough on the fish.

More Snow

As central CT gets smothered in a bit more snow I wonder when the trails will be clear enough to allow me to start my next adventure. I plan on watching a big trout that I know resides in a pool on a river as close to the middle of nowhere as you can get in CT. Hopefully I will learn a lot from the observations and will find a good way to catch the big fella. Gosh, there are days when I just wish that I could ping-pong across the equator, from hemisphere to hemisphere, and run away from winter altogether. I could fish Patagonia from December to March and be in the U.S. again in time for the start of the start of the mayfly season. One can only dream, right?

An Attracter in the Snow

Well, the snow is coming hard and fast, and with it came a potentially good idea. Here is a nymph I tied this morning and some snow photos.