If The Fishing Isn't an Adventure, Make One

Sometimes the fishing is just no good. Today on a usually productive pond I just couldn't get into fish. So I went for an adventure. At heart I am still a little kid, so I love climbing through boulder fields looking for snakes and frogs. And that's just what I did.

This particular area is perfect habitat for timber rattlesnakes, and some landmarks in this part of the state are actually named "rattlesnake". I didn't see any today, but their food- mice, wood frogs, and toads- was out in force.

Tomorrow is the last day of my summer vacation, and I'm planning a special trip. So stay tuned!

Long Time No See, Good Friend

It has been a few weeks since I last fished for wild brook trout on a small stream. This is mainly because I caught enough in New Hampshire to hold me over for a month at least, and the streams here are in bad shape. But today I couldn't stand it any more. I needed to fish for something as pure and native as the rock and the hills.

It was foggy this morning, as Kirk and I found on a morning stroll looking for carp (didn't catch any). It stayed cloudy ad rained a little for most of the morning, but come midday the sun was out and I was done with the work I was doing (not finished, just bored out of my skull) so I jumped on the bike and went for a look at a few local streams.

The first stream did not give up any fish. I saw some and had one take, but no luck.

I only used one fly all day, a classic wet fly that doesn't have a name but just screams "BROOK TROUT WILL EAT ME!!!".

It was the same story with the lower stretch of stream #2. There are often people lounging or sight seeing because of the waterfall, so the fish here are easier to spook. I did see one hiding out under an overhang.

I also fished at the mouth of the stream. These are the kinds of places where you never know what will take the fly. It helps that there is a dock nearby. The water here was abnormally clear, and I watched pike fingerlings nipping at my fly. None were hooked.

I went to the upper stretch of stream. There I focused on rippled pockets, places where brookies could hide and feed without being spotted by predators. This did the trick. I also saw a few big brookies in calm pools, and I marked these as places that would be good to hit on the way back down.

The place you see bellow is the home of a big male brooky. On my way back down I got him. He is just getting dressed up for fall, with the fins turning maroon and the belly orange, while the back darkens and forms a hump at the same time a kype is developing. I love those colors. Fall is coming, and I am excited about that!

Wildflowers, Low Water, and a Big Turtle

It is late summer. The flowers are showing it. The rivers are being hurt by it. But in places the fishing rolls on, especially if you know what you are doing. Today I fished what is normally a sizeable river, now a small stream. Very low but plenty cool. I used a Black Gnat with a small PT dropper. I caught three rainbows of decent size. One leapt five times, a brilliant display. But my prize catch of the day was a snapping turtle. Handling reptiles is a tricky business, but I've been doing it since I was fast enough to catch them. With a little sweet talk even the meanest snakes and turtles can become like soft, fluffy kittens. Err... sort of. This one was not very well behaved and just the worst size to handle. 

Trout and turtle coexisting.

A Rainbow and One of the Most Amazing Fish I Have Ever Caught

Sometimes an angler gets extraordinarily lucky. This is directly linked to the amount of time that angler spends on the water. I spend an inordinately long time on the water, so I figure I am more likely to get extraordinary luck than others. This is about one of those incredible, amazing, and beautifully lucky times. I'm not going to spoil it, but I want you to read all the way through this... I'll give you one hint: it had an adipose fin.

The evening started out less than miraculous. I went out on my kayak looking for smallmouth, perch, rockbass, and carp. I found plenty of the first two.

To be honest I was disappointed that I hadn't been seeing carp. That was what I was most hoping for this outing. But then the weather and one of my favorite optical phenomena improved the out immensely.

The sunset was gorgeous too. It was after it that something incredible would occur.

When I'm moving between spots I like troll a streamer. Today it was a Shrimp Pink Ice Muddler with gold bead head. I caught a little perch and recast. By the time I got back to paddling I had drifted back towards the fly. As soon as the line straightened I realized something was hooked. I assumed immediately that is was a rock. Then I felt the steady thumps of a big fish shaking it's head. I thought to myself  "how did I manage to get a fly right in front of a carp in water this deep?". I continued to believe it was a carp right up until I saw it. This was a big, powerful fish. It ran a few times, peeling line off the reel in a way I would not expect from most fresh water fish. When I got myself onto a sand bar where I could properly fight the fish I noticed it's behavior. A little odd, not what I'd expect from a carp. It was running back and forth slowly but powerfully on the shore. then it rolled on the surface. In the fading light I saw glimpses that made me curious. When I got it close enough to tail I just about crapped my pants.

A ten pound channel catfish is far and away the last thing I expected to see on the end of my line.  I could not believe how big it was. Long and with girth to spare. The whiskers and prominent lateral line explained the ability of this lake monster to detect my fly as it sank to the bottom. I the darkness of twilight I released the fish and watched it swim quickly into the depths. The magnitude of the event did not hit me until a few seconds later. The people living alongside the lake must have wondered what was going on as I whooped and hollered in my excitement. I have for a long time wanted to land a big catfish. I was even ready to target them with bait. Then one somehow found my fly in the dark and gave me a story I will remember for the rest of my life.

A Short Farmington Outing with the D&D

Tommy Lynch's Drunk and Disorderly has to be one of the gnarliest most bad ass streamers I have ever fished. Brown trout see it and just instantly want it dead. It's uniquely trimmed dear hair head gives it some of the best action an artificial fly could have.

Today I finally got to try out the D&D I tied a few weeks ago on the Farmington River. The weather was prime for good streamer fishing. And, had I not been totally off my game, it would have been. I moved so many trout with the new fly I could not believe it. And some of them were pretty darn big. I use floating line because most of the water I fish is not so deep that the fly needs to be on the bottom, and often the fish would explode on the streamer sending spray in all directions. There were quite a few takes that really should have resulted in hook sets, but I am still breaking in a new rod and it has been a while since I last played with big trout and big flies. That being said I didn't get skunked. I landed one chunky beautiful brown on the D&D. My fishing partner for the day, David Gallipoli, caught quite a few fish on dries, including a brooky that may very well have been stream born. The cloudy wet conditions didn't hold out as long as I would have liked and things shut down before I could get back into the groove. Next time....