January Guide Trip Summary and February Forecast

 January 2022 was, for the most part, very cold. There were a few moderately warm days mixed in but on the whole it was ice, ice, and more ice. The first client I had in 2022 got the best weather. Eric wanted to fish a small stream for wild trout, and I had him on one of CT's Class 1 WTMA's. The day started out slow but quickly picked up in the stretch I go to if nowhere else is producing. Eric caught his first brown trout and a couple others to go along with it. The Ausable Ugly was, unsurprisingly, the productive fly. 

The next trip was far less fruitful, though on paper it should have been good from the start. A quick warm up killed the shelf ice and I had my client Jon on some water that had been producing loads of tiger trout along with some giant holdover browns in the weeks leading up. The water was up a bit, which I didn't think should have an impact. Perhaps the disrupting factor was a significant wind and bright sky. It had been forecast to be cloudy, and that probably would have been much better. I had another client who wanted tiger trout the next weekend, so I had to pick a plan B. Luckily I had one, Central CT TMA that for some reason never gets any shelf ice and receives a lot of tigers most stockings. I knew this fall plenty went in, so I hoped I'd have no trouble getting my client on one. The kicker, the conditions were far worse than the previous trip. It was bright, sunny, high pressure, very cold. I was still confident I could get Mike on a trout, and we found one in relatively short order. It wasn't a tiger, but I was happy not to be dealt another skunking.

Luckily, February looks like it will feature much milder temperatures. The snow from the previous big storm has already started to thaw out big time with the rain the last two days, though some of it was replenished with hard sleet. The melt-off will keep the rivers from warming up appreciably, so I don't expect hatch activity or rising trout to be a common occurrence for at least another week and a half.  

Streamer fishing and nymphing, on the other hand, should produce fish. It'll be quantity over quality on the trout rivers for a little while, so if you're interested in learning strategies that focus on larger caliber trout (fish over 14" in small streams and fish over 18" in larger waters) now is a great time. 

Salmon fishing on the Shetucket River should also pick up again after the water warms, until the first trout stocking which for whatever reason seems to scare the salmon off. 

If things get really warm in late February, I'll open the calendar for some very early carp and trophy largemouth trips. It usually only takes a thaw and a day or two in the high 40's to get some of the big fish moving onto mud flats. I'll be watching the forecast like a hawk and I'll post on Instagram and Facebook if a window opens up, if you want to book you'll need to do so quickly as it may only be a one or two day window. This can be an exceptionally exciting type of fishing as it sometimes features quite clear water in places that are often very muddy, requires exceptional stealth and precise, delicate casts, and over the years has produced some large carp for me as well as largemouth from 4 to 6 pounds on quite small flies. 

Thanks to the clients I had in January, it was a mostly tough month and I thank you for bearing with the conditions and I hope to see you all again over the coming seasons!

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.

Speed Fishing WTMA

Sometimes you just don't have time to fish for very long. What do you do? Just not bother? Kick back and relax for a little while instead? That's not me. I have to fish. If it has to be rushed, I can move pretty fast. I am confident enough to know that I can almost always make the right moves to get it done in a short time window. Such was the case yesterday, on a small stream I have fished a fair bit but certainly don't really "know" yet. It isn't a difficult fishery though either. I had a stretch in mind that I wanted to hit and I knew that in the amount of time I had I'd have to cover it systematically but very, very quickly. If I had to run between spots, so be it. I was covering everything I wanted to.

The fly I chose was an Ausable Ugly, sz. 10, the best all around nymph/micro streamer I've ever fished, and I was fishing it on a mono rig with a dacron indicator of my own design and a 28 inch 5x tippet length. The rod, a 9ft 5wt, which seems overkill, but there are substantial fish in this water and I've been burned before with lighter tackle that couldn't keep them out of the cuts and wood. In the end, I am not a fan of fine wire hooks and super long, light rods, which were designed for keeping small fish from shaking off and preserving fine tippets. That's not my game. I often shake fish off intentionally and if I'm fishing 7x, it's certainly not with a subsurface presentation. Loosing a bunch of average or below average fish won't phase me and I like to be able to basically skate in a 16 incher if push comes to shove. And I land a bunch of small fish anyway. Like this guy:

I covered a half a mile of water relatively thoroughly. I skipped a bit because I knew fore sure someone had just fished it, but I hit pretty much everything I wanted to. The ugly did it's job, by it on the swing or dead drifting. I got a couple decent little fish. One was really pretty.

All in all it was a productive little outing. It wasn't ideal, even though it wasn't that warm I ended up sweating, but I sure as hell wouldn't have traded it for just not going.

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! Thank you to my Patrons, Erin, David, and Christopher, for supporting this blog.

A Little Bit of Class 1 Exploration

Josh Parsons invited me to fish a class 1 TMA on Monday. That was a pretty easy choice. This stream was one I have done pretty well in previously and have seen the potential for big fish in. It's also just a gorgeous place. Rolling hills, farmland, mixed forest... it's a New Englandy trout stream if there ever was one.

The outing started out with a surprise. Under the bridge, dangling my little sculpin, I hooked up to what I was pretty sure was going to be a big brown. Then I got a good look at it. 

This very not wild rainbow in a Class 1 WTMA is the second I've caught there since November. It's a different fish too, the other was substantially smaller. 

Fortunately I found a real fish not 15 minutes later. 

Kind of a weird think happened. I had my own personal very short bite window. I got two more browns, found some fish rising to extremely tiny midges that I apparently had nothing small enough to imitate (22's didn't work, wet or dry). I did what I hate doing though and pulled a streamer through the risers and had one of the prettiest browns I've ever seen take the fly. 

 A recent, very brief post of mine spoke to how hard it can be to capture what a fish really looks like through photography. My brief encounter with this handsome fish wasn't such a circumstance. 

A little further up I got my third and final wild brown, a long and lean female. Not long after that Josh and I headed downstream, only to find an exceptional lack of action and a stream bed gouged out by this previous year's extremely high water events. A lot of great structure that had been was gone, and apparently a lot of the fish have moved out of that water. It had also clearly been fished a substantial amount too, but I can see there being some potential here for habitat improvement, as long as it doesn't result in problems for the native species of special concern, slimy sculpin.

Though being a little unusual day it was a good one. I got to cover some parts of the stream that I hadn't previously and caught some exceptional fish. I also saw ways in which the stream could be improved to slow erosion and provide better cover for both trout and smaller native fish species. A time goes on I'd like to see some progress made in this watershed.

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! Thank you to my Patrons, Erin and Christopher, for supporting this blog.

The Moment

There are moments in fishing that have the ability to change the success and vibe of the day completely. Those moments are what those of us who are totally obsessed live for. For me, the ultimate in fishing, the biggest high, is casting to an actively feeding, visible fish, with a fly rod. Whether it's a mudding carp, a striped bass working along a beach lip, a tailing redfish, a darter tucked against a rock in a fast riffle, or a rising trout... species, size, water type doesn't matter. I'm pitting my abilities as an angler against a fish that I can see. I can watch its reactions. Observe its body language. If it chooses to eat  the fly I can see how it goes about it, and how its take corresponds what I can feel with the line and rod. I get the most data out of any interaction with a fish out of sight casting to one with a fly. And, oftentimes, I need not to be the one with the rod in hand to get a great experience. That was the case yesterday when an unexpected scenario made the day for Mike Andrews and myself.

We started the morning on a TMA looking to beat up some stockers. In fact, the trucks had been there this week, and, as evidenced by the footprints in the snow, so had some anglers. The fish had only been in a little while and had clearly taken a beating... a lot of them had lock-jaw. We only got a handful. One of Mike's, though, was a giant broodstock brookie.

We decided to end our morning on a small stream with trout that had actually been born there. We worked upstream, picking the pockets and poking the log jams, with no luck. As I turned the last corner though, I spotted those tell-tail rings on the surface of a great looking pool. Did something fall into the water, or had a trout risen. I didn't have to watch very long to get my answer. Not only was there a trout rising, there were four trout rising. Midges were hatching, it was pretty clear that this was what the fish were moving for. I could see a couple of them in the water, dark shadows over the light sand bottom. Aside from rising they were darting left and right, clearly taking pupa. These fish were on the feed, big time. I didn't make a cast. This hadn't been the plan, I didn't even have a single nymph on me, let alone a Syl's Midge or a Griffith's Gnat. I had plenty of streamers as big as a couple of these fish though. 

Two slightly staggered rises.

I shouted downstream to Mike. We assessed the situation. Like I said, I only streamers. I'm not one to throw a streamer at an actively rising fish. Mike didn't have any proper dry flies either. Looking in his nymph box though, I saw something without a bead: flymphs! That could work, maybe. They were large, for sure, but small stream wild trout are only occasionally very selective. Mike dressed the fly and started to work into position to make the cast. I stayed back and relayed the position of the fish that I could see best, which was the one furthest down the pool. Lining the fish was a concern, but I thought it was possible the fish would react to the fly hitting the surface, even if it were not up-drift from it. This is generally the case in warmer times, but we were in uncharted territory. I had never come across a substantial rise in this stream, let alone in March. I wasn't certain how they'd react. 

The bottom fish didn't at all react to the first presentations, which were down drift from it. As Mike adjusted position slightly, I saw that fish move upstream. We held off for a bit and made sure the fish that had remained in position continued to rise. They did, fortunately.

Mike had an idea. He tied on a dropper, a sz. 22 midge. When he got the right cast, it took no more time than for the nymph to reach its depth than for the flymph fished dry to drop defiantly. I watched the fish move, I watched the fly disappear, then I lifted my camera again. I'm glad I did, because I was in the perfect spot to capture the moment.

Though the fish fought valiantly, in a short time it was in the net. A gorgeous, fat wild brown. That made the trip, for both of us. We saw feeding fish, we planned our approach, and Mike finished the job perfectly. That was awesome.

I should probably have gotten out today on my part time home water. The conditions were gross but ideal. I'll probably regret that move. Tomorrow though, I'm going on an adventure. The late winter saltwater fish hunt will continue.

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! Thank you to my only Patron, Erin, for supporting this blog. 

Wild Water

It's spring. Not really. It's spring according to the calendar. The weather disagrees wholeheartedly and we're going to get a bunch of snow tomorrow. I say it isn't actually spring until I see the first Paraleptophlebia adoptiva. That bug , for the last 8 years, has always been the real sign for me that spring fishing is here and the sluggishness of the winter trout feeding cycle has been replaced with manic binge eating. There have been quite a few years in which this hatch, my favorite hatch, comes off strong before opening day and I've had to travel further to fish it. There are a handful of options. The streams Mark Phillipe and I fished today, I suspect, would have been a really good option in those years. But I hadn't fished either until today, and there sure as hell weren't going to be mayflies hatching today! 

I brushed the skunk away very quickly with a very healthy and good looking brown, followed a short time later by another smaller fish. We then covered an awful lot of water before catching another fish. The water was very cold in the morning, only 33-34 degrees, and it wasn't until it poked over 38 that the bite improved more.

I worked my way up the second stream, finding the kind of classic bend pools that almost always hold wild trout in these streams. Instead of the Ausable Ugly which I had fished all morning up until that point, I had tied on a Sexy Walt's Worm. I picked up a small brown and a small brookie, then a nice size heavily spotted brown, and, on the way back down, a good brookie. It was a short window of fast action.

Where we had started out in the morning there was a bridge. I never overlook a good bridge pool. I got in upstream and carefully corked the riffle at the head. No takes. I slowly lengthened my cast and waded downstream, swinging my fly along the wall. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
Then there was something. A heavy, throbbing, angry something.
The battle, though not long, was a good one. The fish was a very good one. Not huge by any stretch of the imagination, but definitely a small stream trophy. Size, however, just doesn't matter when a fish looks like this:

This was the perfect small stream wild brown trout. The don't get much better looking than this one.

Though it did not feel, smell, or look like spring, this was a good way to spend it. Good water and good fish with a good friend. If these things don't make you happy you should check your pulse.

The Class 1 Dash

March could be a really great month to be a wild trout fisherman in CT if it weren't for the fact that nearly all small streams are closed. No fun. I haven't really fished many of the Class 1 WTMA's which are open during the short closed season. This month though, I'm going to try to fish as many of them as I can. Maybe all of them but probably not. Yesterday, after getting the cold shoulder from the carp, Mark Alpert and I visited one that has been on my list for a while. It was a real oddball stream, far bigger than I was expecting, with lots of very unappealing looking water and garbage. Worst of all, I found this:

That's a worm container on the banks of a catch and release only, single barbless hook artificial fly and lure only regulated water. I could go on and on about the ethical problems with catch and release trout fishing using bait whether it is legal or not, the reality is using live bait for trout kills more fish, but the fact that it is illegal on this stream makes it even worse. So, though it is not likely that the you who left this plastic container will ever read this post....

You are a first-rate asshole. 

If you want to piss me off, show me discarded worm container. Want to make me happy, show me some pristine wild brook trout. 

So that's another Class 1 crossed off the list. From here on out I'll have to go further west than I usually do to get to new ones.