Slamming Tiger Trout

 CT has been stocking tiger trout again. Though the practice isn't something I'm much of a fan of, as is generally the case with stocking any non-native, domesticated fish, they are admittedly more fun and interesting than the run of the mill domestic rainbows and horridly deformed or dully colored browns that predominate CT's hatchery production. They also behave differently than those other fish, and act almost a as a cohesive unit. If a bunch of tiger trout are dumped in one river, they tend to end up pretty far away from wherever they were put but still pretty close to each-other and often in predictable places. This is something that has taken me a longer time to figure out than it probably should have. But now... oh boy. 

Tigers, regardless of their origin, are excessively aggressive in my experience. Wild ones are and stocked ones certainly are. I'll never forget having a tiger hit a mouse 12 times in about 8 minutes, getting hooked twice- and even staying hooked and fighting briefly once  -but eating again and again until I actually landed it. I then caught the same fish again on the same mouse a few days later. This is a notable example of the biological phenomena known as hybrid vigor. 

Over the last couple months I had great success specifically targeting tigers using big streamers, both spey casting in large, sweeping runs and stripping flies in pocket water and smaller pools. There was no best fly, nor a best way to fish the fly other than low and somewhat slow because the water was fairly cold.

 Tigers being tiger, many of these fish were caught after they'd already been missed or hooked. One day Noah was with me, and while we were fishing right next to each other a tiger hit and missed my fly, ate Noah's jig but came off, and then smashed my fly again and got hooked. That one went about 19" and was the longest I'd caught there. 

It's funny. We aren't catching much else at all here, and this spot is solidly miles from wherever these tiger were originally stocked. Tiger never make up the majority of the stocking either. What that tells me is the tigers aren't just doing what all the rest of the stocked trout are doing, or I'd be catching rainbows in the same spot. These buggers are have got their own agenda entirely. That's not necessarily a good thing for a stocked predatory fish to do ecologically, but it does make fishing for them engaging. I'll gladly book trips for these crazy things if anyone is interested. I've got one tomorrow actually, hopefully the fish take advantage of the brief warm-up.

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.

Spillway Multispecies Fishing

 Spillway holes in Connecticut are sporadically productive. It seems that throughout the Midwest, most spillways hold fish well through the winter, but in New England only a small percentage do. It has taken me quite a few years to find some that do hold bass, panfish, suckers, and shiners year round. To make things more complex, some of the spillways only appear to hold fish some years, regardless of conditions. I wish I could say visiting any spillway hole that isn’t frozen is a sure bet for some fish, but that’s definitely not the case in Connecticut. Fortunately I have a couple ringers, and when I’m not in the mood for holdover stripers, trout, or ice fishing, they are there to save my sanity. 

The thought process behind looking for fish in spillway holes in the winter is pretty simple. When the water temperature drops in smaller streams and rivers, the deepest, slowest pools offer the best refuge for warm-water species. Spillway holes are often deep and slow and some have slack or near slack water as well. The thermocline of the lake or pond above also plays a role if the dam isn’t exclusively releasing surface water. In the winter, the water at the bottom of the lake is typically warmer. In essence, the best winter spillways are micro-tailwaters. I know one such micro tailwater in Connecticut and a few top spill dams that hold panfish, bass, and golden shiners at least most winters. 

Noah and I visited one such spillway on a mild day in mid January and found plenty of fish there but didn’t catch much. A few days later I went back on my own. I was in the mood to catch anything that wasn’t a trout, but I was particularly hopeful to get at least one nice golden shiner. I would fish a very small indicator and a size 14 Walt’s Worm. Like a float n’ fly in the late fall or early spring on a pond or the jigging through the ice, an indicator and tiny nymph is subtle enough not to disturb the fish and slow enough they don’t have to move much to eat. The indicator is key, the fly needs to suspend. There is rarely enough current to dead drift a fly in the column without an indicator.

Initially it was sluggish. I could see some very small white suckers flashing but I wasn’t getting takes. It turns out many of the bluegills and crappies were all just jammed into a very small area of less than three square feet. As soon as I began casting to a specific part of the pool, it was a fish almost every cast. Bluegills dominated, though there were a couple very small crappies mixed in. 

I kept going beyond the point where the bite seemed to die hoping for just one golden shiner. I was still getting the occasional take but not many after fish 23. I crept up on number 30 with 7 more bluegills in half an hour. My 30th fish was a golden shiner! It seems 30 is a number of significance when it comes to panfishing in particular. This is something Noah noticed first. If you want to catch something unusual or bigger, one in 30 fish will be something atypical. Sure, it’s not a law, but it seems pretty darn consistent. 

With my golden shiner acquired I decided to head to another dam to see if it was fishing well at all. This one had been sporadic for me but at least usually holds trout. Sure enough, that’s all I caught -stocked trout. One was a tiger. I can’t seem to escape those buggers. A little bummed that there weren’t any wild fish of any kind willing to eat and losing my light anyway, I headed home. My spillway adventures are not done yet this winter though. 

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

Connecticut Tiger Trout: Hypocrisy

CT DEEP stocked tiger trout this year for the first time in a number of seasons. Tiger trout are a hybrid between brook trout and brown trout, and though they do occur in the wild, they do not occur naturally because nowhere on the planet do native brook trout populations overlap with native brown trout populations. I've caught stream born ("wild") tiger trout in CT twice. I've seen two others caught by friends, and photos of others. But most tiger trout caught by anglers in CT are hatchery fish. DEEP stands for "Department of Energy and Environmental Protection." What is a state agency in charge of environmental protection doing placing non-native, non-natural hybrid salmonids in a large number of bodies of water? It certainly has nothing to do with protecting the environment, though thousands of fisherman haven't the slightest inkling of that and are more than happy to have fish to catch. And tiger trout are prized fish. The state stocks fewer of them, just as they stock fewer 24 inch trout than 10 inch trout, so they aren't as easy to catch as the average rainbow. But that's pretty much the only reason any hatchery trout is harder to catch than any other hatchery trout, because they're all starting from the same baseline when they leave that truck and enter the river... except that tiger trout are a hybrid and their hybrid vigor is expressed by voracious eating. I've had hatchery tigers take more than a dozen whacks at a mouse in daylight, get hooked, come unglued well into the fight, then come back and slap the fly again the very next cast. This is a problem. Not only is the state stocking an unnatural hybrid trout, they are stocking one that is a voracious and indiscriminate feeder into waters with native species, sometimes even at-risk native species. This is extremely hypocritical of an environmental protection agency. But they are payed to do what the people ask. And the people evidently want more tiger trout. 

In mid fall I was fishing on local waters, catching plenty of both non-native hatchery fish and native hatchery fish (brook trout, in this case), including tigers. The tigers were impressive looking fish, and I'd hesitate to call them ugly. Plus they were fun to pull on. I couldn't help but feel there wasn't anything legitimately special about them. It didn't take any special knowledge or skill, they were there and if I put a fly past them they ate it. Really they shouldn't have been there. If I could have snapped my fingers and caught nothing but fallfish this day, I'd gladly have done so. I do understand that many anglers would be thrilled to catch these tigers and would scoff at the idea of catching fallfish instead. But that's the whole problem. And it's a huge problem. 

Male hatchery brook trout

Female hatchery brook trout.

The irony is, though I'd gladly see not only tiger trout but all hatchery trout in CT gone, I still post photos of them, write about fishing for them, tie flies for them, and will even guide for them. I profit off of them. But I can't promote nor support any such stocking program. Am I a hypocrite too? Maybe a little. But I'm a wild native fish advocate first and foremost. It's why I'm now on the board of the new Connecticut Chapter of Native Fish Coalition. I want to see meaningful change, and the recognition of the importance of the fish species that have always been here. Although extremely unlikely, I dream of the day every cent spent on raising and distributing non-native hatchery fish is spent instead on habitat restoration, study, and education for native fish species. 

That would be an incredible thing. I can only hope, and fight. And that I will do. 

Later the same day after I'd caught those stocked tiger trout, Noah and I fished some different streams. We caught nothing that hasn't swam in CT waters since the glaciers receded and fish took their hold on the rivers left behind. These species belong here. They're important. I was far more excited by them than I was those tiger trout.

I hope over the years my passion and reverence for wild fish and especially wild native fish has been clear in these pages, these hours upon hours of writings about fishing and about life. And I hope to continue that as long as I can. In the final hours of 2020, I'd like to thank all my patrons for aiding in the continued existence of this blog. I really could not keep this going without your help. Thank you so, so much. And to everyone who reads and comments, thank you as well. I hope 2021 treats you all gently -we deserve it. Happy New Year everyone. 

 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