17 Years

"What's up dog, want some coffee?" Levi whispered as I entered the kitchen, a little groggy but full of anticipation none-the less. "Morning, sure, thanks," I whispered back. "Hell yeah," he replied, "How stoked are you?"

"Pretty stoked."

When the cicadas last came to Central Pennsylvania, I was 11 years old. I'll be 45 when the come back next. That's a lot of time elapsed, and a lot changes. I hadn't yet picked up a fly rod in 2008, in 2042 who knows what life will be like. This year the bugs came again on their cycle and my silly addicted ass trucked it westward thrice, chasing a sickness so good it can't be beat. I've raved about the periodical cicadas before; in 2021 when I intercepted the periodicity in Maryland, and last year when a dual emergence took me to Illinois, Arkansas, Missouri, and Iowa. When magicicadas come out of the ground, I want to be there. They make up one of the last great biomass events of the sort here in the US, and while many were constant, like the buffalo, and some were annual migrations, like the passenger pigeon, there's something extra special and enchanting about an event that occurs more than a decade apart each time. It is miraculous that we still have these bugs at all, the landscape they live under is different every time the nymphs come up. That they still come up from one of the best regions for wild trout fishing East of the Mississippi... How lucky is that? Though, I suppose the same factors that have allowed the cicadas to persist have not been insignificant in providing habitat advantages for the wild trout either. 

Levi and I stepped out into the humid, warm morning air about ten minutes later with a little bit of our gear and a lot of hope for the day. "Hold on, before we go we gotta move the bugs", I said. We were staying at Levi's good friend's, Paul and Kathryn, and they were going to take down a tree in their backyard that day. It was time for a quick rescue mission. We walked over with our phone flashlights on to see dozens of pale, ghostly looking imagos and instars on the tree trunk and low branches. We collected as many as we could and moved them to nearby bushes. When periodical cicadas first emerge they come out of the ground through simple little holes, or sometimes, through turrets of soil that poke up above the ground, small towers of their own design that are made pre-emergence in wet areas in what is presumed to be a bid to keep mud and water from getting into their holes before the emerge. Those final instar nymphs climb out and go for the closest tree or bush, shed their nymphal shuck into imagos- the last, adult stage of their life cycle -and like many emerging insects, take a little while to harden up and get ready to go about their business. They'll go from pale and soft to firm, glistening, black and orange bugs, maintaining deep red eyes through the process. We shuttled as many as we could to safety before hopping in the car to head to the river. 

Central Pennsylvania holds fond memories for both Levi and I, though mine are more limited in number and a tad more recent. Levi fished trout in the limestone region the last time the cicadas came out in 2008, I first fished the area with my good friend Michael Carl in 2018. I've since returned a handful of times to poke into places I'd fished that first time, and a few new ones. Much of Pennsylvania is still Bucolic and beautiful, with sparse populations and varied terrain. Here, the Appalachians  form a series of arching, near parallel ridges. These start near Meyersdale, and you cross or cut through about a dozen spines headed East towards Chambersburg which sits in a wide lowland with rolling hills and the classic carts topography associated with limestone. East of Chambersburg is a less defined but similarly arching range of hills, encompassing Michaux State Forest and extending, broken by the Susquehanna, almost all the way to Reading. Throughout the main crux of the ridges to the west and north are smaller versions of the same sort of lowlands that Chambersburg and Carlisle sit in, each pocked with farmland and hugged on either side by tall ridges. In many of those low areas between the ridges is where the limestoners or limestone influenced creeks live, though each audaciously cuts through the ridges at some point on their journeys toward the Susquehanna, some more defiantly than others. The Little Juniata scrapes starkly through the ridge above Barree, Fishing Creek winds tightly under the steep topography on her way toward Lamar. And then Spring Creek, toward the apex of the curve of the ridges, gently wanders through a less strip of rock between Bellefonte and Milesburg. The millennia that allowed these streams to eat through these seemingly immovable stone ridges is too substantial for our simple human minds to fully grasp. It inspires aww though, when you stop and look at the landscape for a moment. 

Though not as diverse as the southern end of Appalachia, which boast the highest diversity of salamanders in the world and the largest of freshwater fish in the country, these Pennsylvania ridges aren't lacking in life. It's no surprise given that large swaths of this land are still very wild. Though logging has occurred for decades, as well as that farming down low and a slow hum of building in some towns, much of this place is still rugged. The terrain is gnarly and thick, and one can get lost if the try. This is the one of the last places in the country that still allows hunting of timber rattlesnakes, albeit in very limited and regulated form. Indeed they're quite stable here... still, I'd love to see this archaic hunt done away with. Why mess with one of the last best places this species has as a stronghold? Up on those high ridges though, we weren't hearing many cicadas. It was early though, as evidenced by the nymphs crawling out of the ground en masse that morning. We'd need to find an area where the bugs had already been out and flying for a while. Soil temperature has everything to do with emergence timing, and some places warm faster than others. We were committed though, and with windows open and ears trained to a familiar buzz, it didn't take long to find what we were looking for. 

"Mark says the shops the guys at the shop basically told him the fish aren't on them yet and not to waste his time fishing cicadas" Levi reported as we drove between spots. "Oh yeah, it's not worth it at all yet" I retorted snidely and we both laughed. We'd just had exactly the sort of fishing we'd driven over five hours for. Not size, albeit, but numbers? Whoa did we ever have that. And we'd had it to ourselves too, leap frogging up a piece of water neither of us had fished in years with not a soul in sight. Just brown trout sucking down big bugs without consequence... until our hooks pierced their lips. It was... absurd? Deranged? What dreams are made of? All of the above. When I fished Brood X in 2021, I got a modest taste of what trout fishing the periodicals could be, with a couple absurdly fat and happy wild brown trout. This was a more complete picture, as good as you hear it is. We traded remarks and shook our heads in disbelief each time we leap frogged, both reveling in the success of timing things well enough not only to have good fishing, but beat the masses. And, so long as the shops were still downplaying things, it felt like we had good chances to find pockets of stellar fishing throughout the trip. 

Where we were for that first pound-down wasn't a big fish location, but that didn't matter. Having trout come out of every riffle and pocket to hammer our big foam dry flies was thrilling. You can certainly work through similar water with similar flies- especially early in the morning and at times when some golden stoneflies or hoppers are present, or even if there's a modest number of annual cicadas -and pick up a few fish. This wasn't that. This was interacting with possibly as much as a quarter of the trout biomass of the stretch we fished and catching a disproportionate chunk of it. The fish were giddy. I had more than one nice fish (for this place that was 13-14") charge straight upstream a foot or more in fast shallow riffles to eat my fly. This was the dream. 

We were on our way to another spot on the same creek when we received that report from Mark, a stretch I'd fished before and done well with wild rainbows and some browns. The sound out the window as we closed in on our destination and the empty pull off when we got there said we were going to step in it again. 

The storied history of trout fishing in the area of State College is an interesting one, and though many eastern trout anglers may know bits and pieces of the story I think a lot of it has been glossed over. Spring Creek has one of the more distinct histories of course. Many may be aware that Spring Creek was a brook trout dominated fishery into the end of the 1800's, when introduced brown trout began to supplant the native char. By 1950 a native trout in Spring Creek's main stem was a rare occurrence. The origins of some of the rainbow trout that exist in the now mostly un-stocked stream remain a bit controversial, though I'd argue on behalf of some being stream born given the alkalinity, relative temperature stability, and shear perfectness of both par and adults of some specimens. of course, hatchery escapees from Benner Springs and Fisherman's Paradise, and stocked fish moving up from Bald Eagle creek contribute. Anyone who wants to can see the results of this in a tiny stretch right in Bellefonte, where you can pay a quarter or two for some pellets from a dispenser and toss them into a short, closed-to-fishing stretch where trout bigger than some of the carp present in the same spot will greedily take whatever you give them. Levi, Paul and I stood on the wall in Bellefonte one day, tossing leftover french fries and watching giant trout eat them. Those fish aren't Spring Creek's calling card though. If you've heard of the place but never been, your familiarity may start and end with the existence of the famed Fisherman's Paradise section. This piece of water was bought by the state Fish Commission in 1930 for construction of a hatchery and to demonstrate and test new stream improvement methods¹. A hatchery was built four years later. With heavy stocking and stream improvement that are now known in some cases to improve fishing more so that fishery health, the place soon boomed in popularity with anglers. The regulations then imposed ended up being quite unprecedented, and even in today's ecosystem might be though of as incredibly strict. Fishing was restricted to May through July, barbless flies were enforced, wading was prohibited, and there was a small and finite number of visits you could make. Even though some of the stricter regulations haven't carried over to present day, the popularity rivals the present day. More than 44,000 angler trips were registered in 1952. Photos from that era reflect this, with a parking lot jam full and anglers standing shoulder to shoulder on the banks of a Spring Creek that looks so different today it may as well be a different river entirely. 

In 1982, triggered by kepone and mirex contamination, the commission stopped stocking trout in Spring Creek and enforced no-harvest regulations. In turn, the wild trout population, brown trout specifically, absolutely exploded. It has been said that there have been as many as 3,000 trout per mile in Spring Creek, making it very high on (if not at the top) of the list of most densely trout populated streams in the Eastern United States. That population density has changed with time, of course, having apparently increased until 2000 and being on a downward trend since. That downward trend is likely tied to development in the watershed, and PFBC notes as much:

"In other watersheds, impervious surface area has been used as a good surrogate of urban development; when imperviousness reached 7-11%, trout populations were lost. The Spring Creek watershed had 12% impervious cover in 1995, and in the upper one-half of the watershed, impervious cover was 19%. We suggest that the reason Spring Creek is still able to sustain wild trout with this degree of urbanization is the relatively large input of groundwater into the stream. Further development that increases impervious cover, reduces groundwater recharge, or both, will certainly increase the stress on Spring Creek and reduce its ability to support wild trout."²

As development continues in the area around State College, and as climate change continues, its hard to say what the future holds for Spring Creek. What remains abundantly clear to me is that it, and even some of the more marginal trout streams in Central Pennsylvania, make even the best places we have in Connecticut look like a joke. Part of that is the nature of limestone, but part of it is an indictment on what building can do. Connecticut and our rapidly dying coldwater fisheries should be a good example of what NOT to do if you want to keep strong wild trout fisheries around when it comes to development, road salt use, lack of riparian protection, over-stocking, on and on and on. 

One thing Connecticut doesn't fail with is common carp. Europe's most popular "course" fish is highly abundant in the state and isn't going anywhere. Recently, after a number of fish had been caught over the years that could have cracked the former record, someone finally clocked one over fifty pounds. Well over, in fact. At over 58 pounds, Norbert Samok's record fish is a significant achievement. Of course, Pennsylvania has carp too. The state record was caught in 1962 by an angler named George Brown. The fish weighed 52 pounds... ha! We've got you beat there, PA. I can't gloat too much though, because instead of getting the chance to fish periodical cicada eating carp, I can't really wait around in Connecticut. It turned out Pennsylvania was going to give me a challenge too, though. 

Levi and I met Mark Hoffman in Boalsburg on our second morning for our first serving of warm water cicada mania. Haze clung to the hills as the light came up, that sort of low morning humidity that suggested a very hot day was incoming. We hopped in with Mark and headed toward a place where carp, overhanging trees, deep lake shore, and periodical cicadas all overlapped. Surface disturbance was visible as we crossed a bridge over the lake on the way in. There was heavy calling as we pulled into the launch. Anticipation was high, especially for me. I know this game a little bit, I've caught some carp on cicadas. But something was going on at the ramp that put a more than slight kink in the plan. The back cove was all muddy, and in various spots on both the near and far side there was a ruckus going on. Splashing, crashing, tail slapping, jumping... these carp were busy humping, not eating cicadas. The thing with the carp spawn is that it can kind of happen any time the water gets warm. I've seen carp spawn as early as April 10th and as late as September 3rd. Sometimes that's just a few pods of fish and plenty are still happily and busily feeding away. This wasn't that, though. We motored all over the lake and for the most part found nothing but carp making more carp. It got hotter and hotter as the day went on, and though I picked up some largemouth on cicada patterns and Levi ran a little chartreuse bugger and put a smackdown on white crappie, this wasn't what we hoped for. 

As the heat became more and more oppressive, frustration boiled over. We bailed, sweaty and ready for lunch. It wouldn't be for a couple days, right as our trip came to an end in fact, that we got a shot at the carp again. We met Mark at the same launch, just hours to spare before we needed to hit the road. This time there was no thrashing and crashing on that far bank. The carp should be feeding now, of that I was fairly confident. The most confident, in fact, as the previous attempt had shaken Levi's. In fact it had taken a bit to convince him that this could be worthwhile. We motored out of the launch and rounded the corner, travelling down the shoreline where cicadas were calling their little tymbals off. It wasn't long before I saw it: a carp tipped the wrong way, with it's head up and its tail down, orange lips at the surface, sucking down one of the bugs that had so haplessly bumbled onto the lake surface. The were here....

They weren't easy though, and we weren't the only ones on the water. A few other boats were out with fly rods, all working the banks looking for targets. Any pressure can complicate things, especially with carp. These are sensitive, shy fish. Before we found a couple willing carps, Levi managed to catch one of the nicer largemouth bass I've seen in a while. Getting big bucketmouths on cicadas isn't a bummer at all. 

Largemouth bass are America's favorite gamefish. An estimated 16 billion dollars a year is spent on bass fishing. To put that in perspective, the estimated annual market for fly fishing in the US is 750 million dollars. The people love bass, enough so that they've been moved here and there and everywhere. Where we were, just one watershed divide separated us from the native range of the northern bass, but we were fishing to non-native fish where we were. Given their widespread introduction and infusion in the fishing culture, many anglers don't realize when bass aren't native where they fish. In Connecticut, neither smallmouth nor largemouth bass were present historically, and that information is relatively available to anyone who cares to look. That said, it isn't hard at all to find anglers who insist that they are a native fish. Aa great many angler believe a great many things to be true that just aren't though, that is a reality that no longer surprises me. I just roll my eyes with my lips pursed in a tight, straight line and repeat the same statements again-- "actually, the only larger native freshwater predator species in Connecticut were chain pickerel, brown bullhead, and brook trout...." It's remarkable how much of our fisheries are made up of introduced species. In much of the northeast, we're looking at as much as, even more half of the popular target species. Even somewhere like Maine, where landlocked salmon and lake trout did exist naturally, they've been scattered about in all sorts of places they never were before. We think of fishing as a way to be in nature, failing frequently to realize that what we fish isn't actually natural. 

Even the lake we were on wasn't natural. In fact, large natural lakes are essentially non-existent in Pennsylvania. The largest natural lake in the state is Conneaut, in Crawford County. At just 243 acres, it is a piddly body of water compared to the Pymatuning Reservoir just miles away, and even it wasn't immune to human alteration. In 1834 connection to the French Creek canal raised the lake by 11 feet. The geology in Pennsylvania just doesn't make big lakes, unless you count Erie, of course. I wonder how the fishing was in the river that made this reservoir we were fishing before the dam went up, and I wondered how many more cicadas there'd been before the land they lived under was flooded. What fish would I have caught here in 1685, just 20 emergence cycles ago. Would I have been catching 20 inch fallfish here? Giant brook trout? How many billions more cicadas must there have been?

What was is now gone, and there's little left to do but find a carp, put a piece of foam in front of it, and not set the hook too early. 

¹ Tom Burrell, The Express. Dec 14 2024 The Evolution of Fisherman's Paradise

² Carline, R. F., R. L. Dunlap, J. E. Detar, and B. A. Hollender. 2011. The fishery of Spring Creek – a watershed under siege. Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission, Technical Report Number 1, Harrisburg, PA.

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 and Dar 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 Few Screws Loose

 The idea that trout don't live in ugly places is bull. Well, I guess we can find beauty in a lot of places, but the crusty railroad bridge abutment I sat on watching water slide by beneath, tucked within a couple hundred yards between roads lined with industry and shabby houses isn't most people's view of pretty. Nor mine, really. But there is an aesthetic of sorts to decay. When my neurodivergence wandered down the path of model railroading, I took joy in rust and grime and making things look old. I used chalk dust, sometimes dry sometimes not, to make streaks on iron oar cars. I tried to get walls and stonework to look worn, because that was natural. Paint chips, railroad ties crack, and metal rusts. At ten years old I was plenty conscious of that. I looked up to model makers who created urban landscapes that looked right more so than I did those who focused on dramatic natural landscapes. Perhaps that carried over with time, because though I have little interest in building a model railroad through a crumbling urban ecosystem of my own creation, there's still draw to fish a trout stream through the real thing. 

Not long ago I heard a switch-up of the old trout and beautiful places quote, this one was "trout don't live in ugly places, but they're stocked in them". This doesn't hold up either, because the very reason I sat on that bridge abutment was because this urban, grungy stream held trout that were born there. Some quite nice ones in fact. On a different day not far from where I sat I stood on the bank while my friend Grant blew a shot at a very good wild trout indeed, one we both saw enough of to make us wince when that line went slack. Of course, these were brown trout, and their ancestors had indeed been stocked. But they are wild trout none-the-less, and just one example of many in such a setting. Trout hunting has taken me past homeless encampments, under factories, and around more than a few discarded needles. In southern New England it would even seem that some of the prettier, wilder streams have all but lost their ability to produce good wild fish while some urban streams continue to kick out quality fish. It's a tenuous existence, of course. I've watched two of my favorite urban wild trout streams collapse over the last five years. These fish are riding a razor's edge. 

Just a few feet below me was clear water and rock, but also a heaping pile of nails, screws, and other discarded metal. I see a lot of things dumped from urban bridges and this was no surprise. It was quite a volume though. It would be interesting to know what becomes of this and other human metallic waste. In some places our species is creating artificial mineral deposits, some exceptionally concentrated. The current river courses of many Great Lakes tributaries could probably be mined for lead in the distant future. And this pile of rusting nails, if it doesn't just rot away first, could conceivably become some sort of iron deposit in a conglomerate rock layer of this river's substrate. 

Long before that ever happens, though, I hoped to catch some sort of stream born non-native salmonid. Ideally a robust one with orange on its belly and sharp black spots on it's flanks. A beautiful in wild thing that shouldn't be there, in a landscape of our own creation, a river marred unrecognizable from it's former glory. Sometimes, we don't even know what we had after it's gone. 

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, Courtney, Hunter, Gordon, Thomas, Trevor, Eric, Evan, and Javier 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.

Land of Many Uses

 The motto, if you will, of the National Forest system, is "land of many uses". You can see it right on the signs. The first time I can remember seeing that motto was scrawled across the bottom of a sign for the White Mountains National Forest. One of the most striking landscapes in the northeast, the White Mountains feature some of the more severe topography in the Appalachians. Unlike much of the old mountain range, which Westerners often write off pretentiously as underwhelming hills, the Whites stand tall, rocky and steep. The Presidential Range features a stark tree line and some gorgeous high elevation habitat as well as some of the harshest weather on earth at the top of Mt. Washington. But you can drive to the top of that mountain, or ride a train there, and I'd be lying if I said that didn't make me cringe just a little. The White Mountain National Forest feels refreshingly beautiful and natural though compared to a lot of New England. But the reason I remember that signage so distinctly was that my father called my attention specifically to it, elucidating a point my young mind was not yet privy to: a National Forest designation, though it denotes protection to some extent, also seeks to maintain usage of a resource. In the case of the White Mountains, that often meant logging. And on that very same trip we'd hike into a patchwork of cuts, where the star filled sky was visible through where trees would otherwise be visible. It was strikingly beautiful, a far cry from the meagerly star-studded, light-polluted sky in most of Connecticut. 

I think it's very important that I not that cutting down trees often promotes biodiversity. That may seem counterintuitive, but as our forests mature, they often do so in unnatural ways. We've altered the woods here so thoroughly that if you dragged a pre-colonization native American into a time machine and brought them back to present day, they'd think they were somewhere else even if you brought them somewhere without a single building or piece of infrastructure in sight. There is hardly any old growth left, the species diversity has entirely changes, and we manage the land in an entirely different fashion. It is in part because of this alteration that we need to manage habitat now. And cutting down trees can be a part of that. In 2022 and 2023, I surveyed timber rattlesnake habitat with CT DEEP Herpetologist Mike Ravesi. Mike was performing frequent surveys in preparation for a "daylighting" project, which would involve selectively cutting down trees to ensure that sunlight could get to the forest floor in some key areas. This can have significant benefits to a lot of plants, insects, mammals, and birds but we were interested in cutting down trees in this zone to improve basking conditions for state endangered timber rattlesnakes. Sometimes, cuts are done without a direct conservation point like that but still result in positive outcomes and increased biodiversity. And, of course, logging can be very damaging and disruptive as well. But it that clearing in the White Mountains- where the harvesting of trees was done in a scattered, selective manor -berry bushes flourished where little but moss and ferns would otherwise. So use doesn't always hurt. But it does dissuade notions of wilderness or a completely natural setting that would otherwise creep into mind at the mention of a National Forest. 

This was very centered in my mind as I passed the first sign for the Allegheny National Forest in western Pennsylvania on a grey, cool-ish August day. The land of many uses. This can well describe much of Pennsylvania, which is a treasure trove of natural resources. Especially fossil fuels. In 1859 Edwin Drake was hired by New York lawyer George Bissel, who founded the Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company, to travel to Titusville and drill for crude oil. This was a pivotal moment in the industrial revolution, one of many Pennsylvania has been responsible for as a provider of coal, oil, and more recently, natural gas. 

One of the "many uses" for Alleghany Natural Forrest is mineral extraction, and that includes natural gas. The resources bellow that landscape are abundant and in some cases very much up for extraction. There are literally thousands of gas wells in Allegheny National Forest. And according to the Forest Service there were 11 fracking wells as of 2018. For those that may not know what fracking is exactly, it is a method of natural gas extraction using pressurized fluid. If not properly and safely performed, fracking can contaminate groundwater. In Dimock, Pennsylvania faulty wells drilled by Cabot Oil & Gas leaked methane into the ground water, apparently leading to residents of the town being able to ignite their tapwater on. In Oklahoma, fracking and wastewater disposal (pumping the contaminated water into the earth below the water table) resulted in a steep increase in earthquake activity with some rumbles exceeding 3.0 on the Richter scale. Though these are not devastating in magnitude, anthropogenic earthquakes can't be a good sign for the health of the land. And here, in the Allegheny National Forest, corporations spurred on by the gas rush were happy to drill baby drill. Many emphasize the lower emissions and efficiency of natural gas compared to other fuels, hoping to combat the widespread opposition of the practice. 

The Marcellus shale layer containing the gas was far underneath me on that road, on fact it was a geologic feature I'd never knowingly layed eyes on. But the wells tapping into the earth- new and old, gas and oil -were a very common sight all over Pennsylvania. They'd been a fixture of the background throughout my childhood, a relic of history anyone growing up there couldn't really avoid learning about in some capacity. In Connecticut, you don't see oil wells or derricks, large refineries rusting into the ground, or gas wells for that matter. We're far removed from that, though pipelines carry the gas to us and some of us use it. In schools here we didn't learn about the oil rush, other kids didn't believe me when I told them oil "came from" where I grew up, that it was Western Pennsylvania that initially fed that oh so vital part of humanity's growth and development. 

I was back in this part of the world in large part to use it too. The land here has rivers, into which many were introduced a glorious salmonid from the European continent. Ah, the brown trout. What a spectacular fish. Unwittingly they did quite well in part of the Allegheny watershed, and failing natural conditions in some places took good advantage of another use of the land. A handful of large dams have permanently altered the landscape of this part of the world, and in doing so made the rivers below them far cooler. This was an accident, we had no intention of such things. The water was needed to make power or to drink. Mostly to make power. But the deep reservoirs make tailwaters, and the tailwaters provide nice year round homes for non-native brown trout. I was there to use the rivers for my own recreational enjoyment through hunting down those non-native trout. All throughout Allegheny National Forest, non-native trout exist, some succeeding in making more of themselves but many being carted their by trucks from hatcheries to live out a short time before being caught or simply dying of ineptitude. This may be one of the weirder uses on a National Forest: we use it as a vessel for fish we make, fish that wouldn't naturally be there, but fish we like to catch. 

There are plenty of natural fish in and around Allegheny National Forest. Smallmouth bass, suckers, muskellunge, brook trout... all present for thousands of years and all perfectly good at making more of themselves when we don't use their habitat so hard it ruins it. Unfortunately in some case we did use the habitat a little too hard. That was often the excuse for adding new fish. Ironically, in some cases the habitat is used so hard that even the new fish struggle.  Johnsonburg, Pennsylvania was not a particularly hospitable place for fish, native or otherwise, for quite some time. Johnsonburg is a small town near Allegheny National Forest. Really, it is a ways east of the National Forest and tucked between massive chunks of Pennsylvania State Gamelands. Johnsonburg has one primary use, being the site of a big paper mill. The Domtar Johnsonburg Mill is an imposing cluster of structures that puts of a pretty unpleasant smell and according to Domtar's website, "manufactures uncoated freesheet papers used by customers to create brochures, direct mail, stationery, checks, envelopes and hardbound books".

In an earlier time, this mill and other industry in the area were absolutely raping the Clarion River and it's forks. The East Branch flows essentially through the Johnsonburg paper mill. For a long time, these were essentially dead water. But by the 90's, improved regulation and cleanup efforts rendered many rivers in the industrial towns in Western Pennsylvania viable fisheries once more. 

Now, I hate talking about places in fishing. I don't like burning spots. But I'm not going to talk about fishing here much now, if you care to know what these rivers are like there are plenty of resources online that will tell you all sorts of things, much of it old, much of it certainly untrue. I will tell you this: the rivers I've fished in that part of the world were not earth shattering in any capacity. Some were very pretty, some fished quite well. Often though, I struggled to find fish, access was difficult, and there wasn't anything particularly universally appealing. At times there were very obvious drawbacks to the casual angler. That is precisely my cup of tea though; high risk, high reward. Coupled with relative proximity to the place I was born but never got to fish these rivers of western PA became highly appealing to me personally... even if I walked and fished miles of them without seeing a trout. So, yeah, you know where I was now. Good for you. Good luck with that. 

Though Johnsonburg has one defined use in the paper mill now, the land around it was just as much the land of many uses as the National Forest was. More so, really. It was being used to live on, travel on, grow food on, find and kill food on, have fun on, dispose of waste on, and all sorts of other things. Though the amount of users here was much smaller than back at home and it felt a little easier to get away from obvious signs of use, the signs were still there. A low hum of anthropogenic alteration was always a little bit audible. But when darkness fell and a light rain began, after I'd caught far fewer and smaller fish than I wanted to and trotted through a setting no less urban and industrial than cities I fish in other parts of the world, I went about looking for a place to spend the night. 

Two things struck me in that search. There were far fewer cars whizzing around at 9:45 than would be at home. And there were far more animals in the road. In mere miles I saw dozens of frogs, mostly green frogs and pickerel frogs, quite a few smaller salamander species as well as red efts, a few possums, numerous very healthy deer, and three snakes of three different species, all robust and happy. In the same amount of time and distance traveled in Connecticut I'd be hard pressed to see the same abundance and diversity of wildlife under the same conditions at the same time if year. This wasn't mass migration season, this was a light drizzle on a cool August night, barely enough to keep the wiper blades going. These were just animals going about their normal nocturnal patterns, and though the roads were there they weren't so traveled that most wildlife populations forced to trek across them had been smashed to pieces by speeding vehicles. 

This land has a great many uses. It had been used and used hard. But our use hasn't ruined it yet. It is still vibrant and lively, much in the way the White Mountains always felt to me. There were things here and there that made me cringe like a road up Mt. Washington. The smell of the paper mill, the stands of invasive knotweed along the river, gas wells in the National Forest- all scars, deep and painful to the touch. Between the deep scars were just shallow ones. Land still used, but less hard. It was impossible to find land the way it always had been without interference. There isn't any left. 

I think the National Forest signs are misleading, perhaps on purpose. They try to convince us that they're protected from abuse. The signs have rounded, happy edges and the same color as signs for parks and historical landmarks. But they don't fully hide the truth, it's right there at the bottom. What do people sometimes say when we feel like someone takes advantage of us? "I was used!" "You used me!" The feelings associated with that are not positive ones. Sometimes they are deep, lasting scars. In no way am I suggesting that the land has a conscious to feel used, but perhaps it is best to think it does. It seems that in human history the cultures that treated the land as though it were aware and alive were much more sustainable in their impact. Those that treat the land with dominion, lording over it as owners and users, often lose sight of the value of that land and its resources to the point of depletion and destruction. We need to stop viewing the land as something inanimate for us to use. 

 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, Courtney, and Hunter 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.

Down in Brown Town

 The road to the Norfork Tailwater from Mountain Home was a sad one in June. Early in the morning on May 26th, 2024, at around 4:30am, a large tornado carved a six mile path, almost paralleling the main road. It was rated EF-3 and killed one woman, injured others, and destroyed multiple homes. Emily and I passed through the wreckage of people lives before dropping down into the valley where the tailwater was. Though it hadn't caused as much damage down there, word is the tornado and associated severe thunderstorms had blow the last of the Great Southern Brood periodical cicadas in this area away. Given that was the main reason for the visit, it was hard to feel confident about the daytime fishing. The sight of people's lives scattered around in the woods and fields like so much tissue paper by winds over 120 miles per hour was, much, much harder to stomach. So perhaps I ought not see much at all? Brown trout, especially big brown trout, are very nocturnal critters anyway. 

Northern Arkansas may not seem the most likely place for one of the best big brown trout fisheries in the world, but combination of factors, most of them unnatural, have resulted in just that. In 1944, construction was completed on Norfork Dam, which was originally designed to be a flood control dam but modified to include generators, and in 1949 stocking of brown began. Bull Shoals Dam was opened on the White River in 195, and Greers Ferry Dam created the Little Red River tailwater in 1962, and soon all three tailwaters would become robust trout fisheries as the massive and deep reservoirs created by these dams would keep each at a steady, cool temperature even in the stifling Ozarks summers. As time passed, aquatic insects would populate, stocking regimes would change, and instances of gigantic trout would grow more and more frequent. On May 9th, 1992, Howard Collins caught a 40 pound 4 ounce wild brown trout out of the Little Red, solidifying  Arkansas in the annals of brown trout angling history. Each of these tailwaters could at any moment kick out a brown trout as large as anyone has ever seen to some lucky angler. 

I'd first learned about the White River in the context of streamer fishing. When the big-streamer-trout craze hit its peak, there were essentially two epicenters- Michigan and Arkansas. The White River, with its size, heavy generation cycles, baitfish population, and monstrous trout became a big fly mecca. For a long time I thought that if I ever got to fish the White it would be in the winter to chuck big streamers and sinking lines. About a decade later and I first wet my waders in the White when they turned most of the generators off, when the water was low and manageable in the black of night. Instead of a high-octane, fast stripping, covering a lot of ground, I was in for a different experience, but one that is very much my style now- the subtle approach, covering water with careful deliberation, alone, with somewhat subtler tactics. I'm still very much after the same sort of fish though- big, predatory Salmo trutta. 

The specific allure of night fishing for me is its tactility. I read water by feel, a keen awareness of the tension on my line and what it means guiding me through seems, eddies, pockets... time taught me that I don't need to see to read water, even somewhere I've never been. The take, the feeling of the take, is the prize. A fly line is a glorified handline. We manipulate our flies primarily with our hands to achieve a specific action, then the take often registers through that line rather than feeling the rod bend holding the grip. The feeling of a grab in the dark, with all visual aspects removed, is an electric feeling. It isn't always jarring, aggressive, or violent. Oftentimes the larger the fish is the more subtle it is, which makes good sense to me. Even with a fairly large, buoyant fly, the take of a large brown trout may just be an increase in tension. There's often no loud blowup or surface hysterics. Think of how a 20 inch trout eats a mayfly dun. There's no need for it to race up and attack it violently. It can just gulp it down. That seems to be exactly how giant trout eat frogs, injured baitfish, mice, and other such things in the dark. Sometimes though it is explosive, and that is of course quite jarring and exciting. But if I'm honest, I like the subtler takes better. I feel they result in fish to hand more often. The subtle bite and subsequent hookup is an affirming bit of confirmation that technique and approach are on point.

I crept my way out into the low flows of the river blind in one sense but with the added confidence of useful intel from a friend. On such a big river, its more than a little intimidating. But I have a lot of good friends that have fished all over, and Mark Sedotti had given me all I really needed to know to be safe- what wading would be like and a list of places I could park. I'd have tackled the river without the intel anyway but my approach would have had to be more cautious and slow. Careful daytime examination was performed, though the flows were much higher than they'd end up being. 

My process was very simple- slowly work the available water with a large, neutrally buoyant confidence fly, altering my presentation periodically and moving only when I was sure I'd thoroughly covered the water I could reach and didn't believe it was worth waiting for more fish to move in. This was unlike anywhere else I'd night fished though. The maximum possibilities were outrageous, the number of fish were as well. The forage variety isn't what I'm used to either. But trout are trout no matter where you are in the world, so I was sure I'd be able to catch. Sure enough the river delivered in fairly short order. 

My first Arkansas trout ate on an upriver cast in nearly still water, the current was just trickling along. I'd pushed a couple fish out that were practically belly crawling in the shallows, each a decent trout, and it became clear I couldn't rule out this water. I pie cast, starting straight out then closing in on the bank. Short casts, in the sweet spot for a delicate landing and minimizing the chance of lining fish. Really, I want led to land my fly withing a leader length of one and have it eat in just a few strips. That's exactly how it worked: cast, slow strip, tight. Quite a good start too, I'd say. It was my largest wild river trout of the year. 

That first night provided a slow pick, with nearly every fish coming when I either moved a little or altered my presentation. I only caught two fish doing the same thing, in fact. Each fish was a good one though. 

My tally was seven fish by the time false dawn approached. It was like leaving with a good taste but a hunger for more... just an appetizer before the restaurant closed. It was time to leave the river for the daytime shift crew to come in, for the generators to turn on, the flows to rise, and the jet boats to take over. 

A second might really wasn't in the plans. The idea was originally to head north trying to get back into the thick of it with the magic cicadas. Emily would still need to sleep though and I struggled to justify driving away from what would likely be my best shot at a monster trout for the rest of the year without one more attempt. We got another night at the hotel and I took a bit of a pre-game nap after a day of day of hunting new species with my friend Hamilton Bell. An alarm jarred me awake again and midnight for another shift hunting the big one. 

Brown trout look a bit different everywhere, though maintaining certain consistent traits. In the White River a lot of the brown trout seem to have these incredible big fins. Some seem unreasonably large and fan-like, disproportionate on the body of the fish they belong to. Any number of things could drive this trait and not every individual has them but enough do that those big, webby fins can be somewhat of a visual clue that the brown trout you're looking at came from the White River. There are many places where fluvial brown trout grow old and long and their fins get quite large as they age despite the fish not getting much heavier. These old, big-finned trout look a bit different than these trout. A lot of 20 inch White River trout aren't old fish but still have these disproportionate fins. It's an interesting trait. 

The night two highlight ended up being a short window in a big eddy when a fairly quick two hand retrieve seemed to be favored. This is counter to most of the deathly slow presentations I make at night, but it works now and then so I use it. A gnarly 22" rainbow and a 19" brown fell first, neither take being particularly noteworthy despite the aggressive retrieve. The next fish to move, though, absolutely blasted out of the water for the fly and completely missed. That one was clearly a much larger fish, which I could see partially in the glair of a house's lights. I'd guess it was in the high 20's, though I really don't know for sure. It never made contact with the fly that I could feel and I couldn't get it to come back. Though 25 fish came to hand on that second night and plenty were 18-22", the real monster still alluded me. 

Once again there was a little light in the sky as I peeled my leaky, smelly waders off after that finale stand. I reflected on how exceptional the fishing I'd just had was. On a lot of the rivers back home I typically go a whole season without catching as many quality wild trout in the dark. It's pretty cool to step into a place where the standard is a little different, and the possibilities are almost hard to fathom. 

 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, Courtney, and Hunter 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.

Bug Factory

 A lot of trout waters in Connecticut go pretty much unnoticed. Though the covid fishing boom brought new pressure to some of them, it didn't seem to have lasting affects for most. While the Farmington continues to see a perpetual parade of anglers, other river slink by in the shadows, known to locals and not much in the way of anyone else. One grabbed my attention a while back. At almost an hour away from me, it wasn't exactly convenient, but rumors of large wild fish from the few people I could find that knew anything at all about it encouraged my interest. Garth and I made a few wintertime trips, one of which produced a couple hatchery rainbows while another proved fruitless, but I had a feeling this stream might really pop come spring. Fast forward from February to late May, and I'd certainly missed most of the window when I happened to make a stop while on other business. A small town pull-off gave me immediate access to the river, and when I walked down to the waters edge it was a sight to behold. The rivers surface was coated with little blue-winged olives and March browns. 

Being a bit of a bug nerd and a lover of the dry fly, I couldn't rig fast enough. My habits have drifted me away from springtime hatch fishing in recent years, which is a shame as it is not only something I particularly enjoy but a style of fishing I had gotten quite good at. There is something special about observing a rising trout, gauging its size and attitude, making an approach, then landing the perfect cast and drift over its head and seeing that snout come up for the fly. It is cliché, but for a reason. That really is fly fishing. The cardinal sin was putting mass on the hook and pursuing the sort of fish that don't eat bugs. As Hank Patterson once said, "a fly doesn't have to be a fly fly to be a fly". But it is nice to fish a fly fly sometimes, and I probably should more often.

Now, I already knew this wasn't a high density river fish wise. It was classic marginal water. So though there was a blanket hatch in progress, heads were spread out. I found a few gulpers in the head of the first pool I looked at though. I lengthened and tapers down my leader as I watched them feed, then tied on a simple grey Comparadun. With a complex hatch and fish rising in fairly riffled water at the head of the pool, I could see individual fish eating more than one species of bug and lacking fly fishing pressure, I figured these trout would eat something impressionistic rather than an accurate representation of one of the handful of species of mayfly I was seeing. I also watched one fish eat a blue winged olive, a pale mayfly that looked like a vitreous, and a caddis in quick succession. 

Of the four fish consistently rising, none of which seemed especially large, called to me. He was rapid fire housing every bug that came down his lane. I positioned myself above and adjacent to the fish on the bank and laid the fly about two feet above it, making one mid air mend in the process. The drift was fast. The trout rose to the fly without concern and I lifted the rod. There is a simple rhythm to the dry fly game once an angler is attuned to it. The outcome is almost manufactured, is if dropping this gorgeous little wild brown in the net was always going to happen as long as I followed the rhythm. 

The fish had an interesting different look to it than I'd generally expect, but after seeing a couple of photos of wild fish from the watershed I knew they had a different look. It was nice to get one after a few trips of searching, and confirmation that hard effort might yield even greater results here. The hatch continued into dark, and I kept fishing and picking of risers when I found them. It wasn't incredible fishing, but satisfying. And a testament to the quality of a relatively unknown river. I'm pulled to these places more and more with the popularity of trout fishing ever growing on the well known rivers. I'd rather fish a bug factory of a stream completely alone for just a handful of trout than share a pool with three or four anglers I don't particularly care to know. 

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, and Sammy 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

Go Back

Trucks roared by one the highway as I traversed the brushy riparian zone of a small wild trout stream. The landscape I was in was heavily altered, to my eye. But if it weren't for that road perpetual road noise someone else may not recognize the signs of human interruption. Many haven't trained themselves to understand the unnatural landscape, and some signs are more subtle than others. I wasn't in a city or even a suburb, I was in the woods. A place many might call "out in nature". But there was actually very little in front of me that was indeed natural. 

Dropping down a steep bank, I looked up and down a straight course of the stream. Along one bank was broken rock, rock which didn't match the native granite and gneiss. This black and fine grained basalt, a volcanic remnant that looks the part, had likely been quarried from one of the ridges in Central or Western Connecticut or possibly even Massachusetts. It was broken free with the help of explosives then trucked to this place and used to try to make a stream do what some people had decided they needed it to do. This stretch had been channelized, making it a straight shot of underwhelming water. Without natural bending and meandering the stream couldn't create deep pools, undercuts, or slowly fell trees into itself. This is all necessary habitat for fish, macroinvertebrates and more. Without it the stream was not only unnatural but much less full of life. I wouldn't catch fish in this section, they weren't there. They weren't there because people had made it unlivable. 

The irony is the fish I was there for was a fish that didn't belong either. Salmo trutta, not in spite of but in fact because of out love for them, are a broadly introduced invasive species that has brought disruption and damage throughout the world. I harbor a similar deep appreciation for brown trout, but unlike others who allow their adoration to cloud their view, I can see the problem at hand. This very stream should be and could be teaming with the native salmonid, Salvelinus fontinalis. But brown trout sometimes have advantage outside of home court and they outnumbered brook trout here. When I reached stretches where the stream took its own course and formed deep cuts and pools I ran into brown trout. These lovely fish had genetic lineage dating back to near their initial introduction. They'd adopted and adapted characteristics that allowed them to survive in this foreign land, and to me they were indeed beautiful creatures.

 As if they weren't there, in just a couple months a truck would pull up to a bridge not far from here and offload a couple hundred horrible facsimiles of these fish. Farm raised and bread, these trout would be ill adept and equipped to survive where they'd be put and in all likelihood none would even survive a whole season. But while they were there they'd do nothing but damage to the wild fish present in the stream, be they native or non-native. Human's had demanded the stream travel a certain course and they demanded not only what sort of fish lived in the stream but how many as well.

I dropped below the channelized stretch a ways, navigating between beech trees and maples, none of them very big or old, and occasionally deviating around a mess of green brier or bittersweet. Even these aspects of the landscape hinted at the anthropogenic alterations. Invasive plants, stunted trees, and unnatural abundances of species denote the post-European New England forest. Old growth is all but non-existent today, as are many of the huge native trees that once characterized and cast wilderness. Of course, the native peoples were making changes too before the white man ever stepped foot here. The natives managed land for their survival, maintaining habitats that favored species they relied on. Europeans had a different outlook: domination. And we did indeed dominate. We used, abused, and replaced. We left a landscape that is lesser, even when we've tried to protect it for the future. It's hard to feel something other than cynicism and apathy once you know just how... wrong, how unfathomably incorrect our people have made all of this landscape. If I could snap my fingers and turn it all back, I would. But I can't. So that leaves those of us who know to take responsibility. It will never be what it was; but those with the eye for human change and alteration, who know the subtle signs of damage, should use their understanding to turn back the clock where possible and preserve with extreme prejudice anywhere that remains somewhat natural. So the next time you go for a walk in the woods or along a stream, try to look at it with a new eye. Ask what's natural and what isn't and consider what could be put back. 

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, and oddity on Display 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.

Leeches on Trout

 Have you ever caught trout with leeches on them? It doesn't seem to be a common occurrence for one reason or another, and one wouldn't expect it to be frankly. Most environments salmonidae occupy aren't particularly leech filled, nor do trout and salmon make themselves easy targets for mud and leaf-litter dwelling leeches even when they do exist in the same water in large numbers. I can remember one brook trout, caught in a far eastern Maine beaver pond, that had a couple leeches at the base of its ventral fin. The beaver pond factor made that less than shocking. In fact, when I was done fishing there I picked a few leeches off my legs, and later at the hotel more still that had made it into my boots and through my socks. Leeches are perhaps more expected in beaver ponds than even brook trout, so the two in tandem isn't exactly a shock. But I'd never caught a trout in CT with a leech on it. That is, until a few weeks ago. 

I've been paying semi-regular visits to a classic small CT brown trout stream that I know has the potential to kick out some high quality fish. It's a tricky stream to negotiate, at least the stretch I've come to prefer. Tangles of felled trees make fantastic and necessary habitat. They're also great at keeping anglers out of a lot of water, doubly excellent. I love crawling under, climbing over and clambering through fallen trees and thick brush to explore streams. It destroys waders and other clothes and does a little damage to the skin sometimes too, but I feel it's worthwhile. After negotiating my way through the maze one morning in mid January, I worked the water for a little while before a brown took my streamer. When I got it to hand, I could see that it had some small leeches on its tail and ventral fin. This was the first of three trout I'd catch that day that had leeches on them. One other fish didn't have any. Given the notable absence of leeches on trout anywhere else I'd fished in CT, I found that noteworthy. 

So what does it mean? Well, I don't know. It likely speaks to the nutrient levels of the stream, and certainly to the substrate. A lot of the stream bed there is fine sediments and mud, goods habitat for some leech species. Whether the leeches are having any notable impact on the trout themselves, I'm not sure. The easy leap is that parasite=bad; but that isn't completely accurate. The trout these leeches were on were no worse for wear. If there are more leeches in this stream than is typical they may in fact make up a substantial portion of their diet. But really, I'm not sure. All I can say is I don't generally find leeches on trout so to see so many on a high percentage of the fish I caught in one day seemed interesting. What do you think?

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, and oddity on Display 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.

Spectacular Vermont Brown Trout

 "Want to give it a shot?" Drew Price called to me from the other side of the creek, knee deep along a great looking pool. He'd just hung his fly in a limb on the near side after covering the pool fairly thoroughly. I figured I had no shot but said "sure" anyway and crossed to his side. The clear, cold flow of this lowland river squeezed the air out of my waders as I made my way over on a gravel bar. This was a stream I'm never fished before, one Drew told me had been really intriguing him as it refused to give up the caliber fish he knew were residing there. Of course this intrigued me greatly. That's the sort of trout stream that grabs and maintains my interest, the sort that I know has large fish but is impenetrable and hard to crack. So of course when Drew asked if I'd like to make the ride up and fish it with him I obliged. 

The initial fishing enforced the idea that this was going to be a tough nut to crack. Access wasn't easy, the water was very clear, and the narrowness and sweeping bends formed complex current breaks that were hard to read. There were also lots of places for a lethargic trout to bury themselves into during the cold- deep cut banks and log jams -that they likely won't come out of all that willingly.  We didn't catch fish through a bunch of juicy looking water. I'd opted to fish a mono rig and a sparkle minnow. I have confidence in Coffey's Sparkle Minnow for wild brown trout just about everywhere, and the mono rig would allow my to flip and sling the streamer in the abundant places where I'd have no back cast room. I moved two smaller trout as we made our way down, both made their attacks the moment after I completely flipped the direction the fly was swimming. But those fish really weren't all that confidence inducing for me, they were small fish and we were covering a lot of water that felt as though it should be producing that just wasn't. Drew wasn't kidding about this place. 

That was what lead us to that deep pool. In that time, the river had gotten under my skin, just as Drew had expected it would. This was my sort of trout stream. And it was about to get a lot more interesting. I eased up the side of the pool where drew had fished and began casting my sparkle minnow toward the head of the pool. I made a few fairly typical retrieves before I decided to switch it up and two hand retrieve as fast as I could. I don't remember how many casts it was before a nice trout made a visually spectacular swipe at the fly just about right under Drew's rod tip. "Shit, I just had about a 22 inch fish take a swipe" I said. It never touched the fly, but I really didn't expect it to come back. I made three more casts before feeling that telltale tension and with urgency stated "there she is!". I made quick work of the fight and Drew got the net under it. We went crazy, both of us- almost incoherent. It was indeed 22 inches, and an absolutely gorgeous and unusual looking trout. It didn't look like any trout I'd ever caught before. It was very pale overall with spectacular light blue cheeks. It was a lovely brown trout and my first over the 20 inch mark this year. A good start to the new trout year if I do say so myself!

Photo Courtesy Drew Price

Photo Courtesy Drew Price

That could have been a start of a roll, but it wasn't really. Drew caught another fish a short time later but other than that I don't know that either of us actually moved another the rest of the day. The water looked great though and I was beginning to formulate methods and approaches. Suffice to say, I'll be back. Likely more than once. Probably many many times. Though that fish was a clincher, there's just something about covering as much water as we did, as much killer looking water, without catching numbers of trout that intrigues me. We know there are fish there. Obviously there are fish there. The question is, how do we catch them consistently? It'll take some time to figure it out I'm sure. 

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, and oddity on Display 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.

New Year's Day 2023

 It's another year. 2022 was, well, it was an odd one for me. Like a roller coaster would be an apt description. The highs were really high, the lows were really low, and the drops happened so damned fast it made my head spin. The last day of the year was a pleasant one. I had a client in the morning- one of my regulars, Mike -and it was a great trip. The weather was very mild and the trout obliged. After that I went and relaxed with some friends, seeing the year out relaxed and happy. 

This is our first New Year's Day without Alan. The small stream crew, no doubt, were all feeling his absence on the 1st. I know I certainly was. John and I had planned to get together and fish. He ended up with vehicle problems, something I'm certainly sympathetic to as my rig insisted on being a problem child this year with a broken axle casing, differential needing a complete overhaul, faulty alternator, and some more minor issues. Luckily it's running nicely at the moment. I had free reign of what stream I could fish on January. I decided to fish a small river valley stream dominated by brown trout, but with a few brookies mixed in as well. The temperatures were mild, the sun was up, and rain the previous night had brought flows to a nice level. 

I really wanted to go light as far as gear. Waders felt unnecessary, I went armed with just a sling pack and good old five weight. On the end of the leader was an Ausable Ugly. The plan was to fish thoughtfully and slowly, and hopefully catch any opportunistic trout I may come across. 

I've found that fishing trout streams without waders forces an angler to be more careful about their approach. Up on the banks, an angler is often a more obvious figure. One must move slower and position themselves more precisely. Waderless fishing made me more aware of putting sight blocks- objects that would obstruct a fish's view in my direction -between myself and the water I was going to fish. This was especially important in my early years as I tended to move quickly. I can remember numerous occasions on which I'd watch Alan get right on top of the water he was going to fish. He wasn't a large man, so simply by moving slowly and not making much commotion he was able to catch fish from close proximity. I had and still do have a hard time with that approach. Instead I get low, even crawl at times, and hide behind things. I fish longer rods and heavier flies a lot, so allowing long downstream drifts into places I can't cast isn't always an option. That was Alan's forte, light soft hackles and long downstream presentations. If he couldn't cast as far as he wanted due to obstructing brush he wasn't bothered. He could just control his line a fly and feed them down-current. I learned to employ this strategy with dry flies and still do that often, but I've yet to fall in love with the dangled wet fly the way many of my small stream friend have. 

On this tiny, brushy stream, my positioning had to be especially precise. I often opted to fish from within thick brush, finding windows to drop or bow-and-arrow cast my fly into runs and pools. If I hooked a fish from these positions it required quick action to get to the water's edge and land it, but I couldn't fish these same places from the edge of the stream anyway without risking spooking the trout. I'd often be reaching over a rod length's worth of bittersweet to drop the Ugly into promising water that I could barely see from my position. It may seem like unnecessary effort when some of the pools between had far easier approaches and casting windows, and maybe some days that's true. But not this January 1st. Each opportunity I got to bring a trout to hand came in one of the tricky pools to fish. 

One particular trout really made my day. It came in a classic "log pool", where the spill over a submerged downed tree gutted out a nice deep hole that featured an eddy on either side. Some activity upriver was churning up the bottom, and though it was settling out by the time the water reached the area I'd started visibility was low all the way up here. Maybe five inches. I made sure to work the pool very thoroughly because of this. Whereas it may only get a half dozen casts under clear water conditions I put about twenty through it this time. The last was greeted with an almighty thump. The fish that was responsible made good account of itself despite the cold water. It was a gaudily colored creature the likes of which one would not likely expect to encounter in a tiny and somewhat urban Connecticut creek. Well Pete and Alan, this one is for you. Happy New Years my friends, we miss you both dearly. 

This New Years Day was a bittersweet one for me. Perhaps it was fitting that I spend much of it crawling through the plant of that name. I really hope 2023 is a good year. I have some hope at the moment. I feel good. 

Thank you to my Patrons; Erin, David, John, Elizabeth, Brandon, Christopher, Shawn, Mike, Sara, Franky, Geof, Luke, Noah, Justin, Sean, Tom, Mark, Jake, Chris, and Oliver 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.