Quality Over Quantity

All wild brook trout are beautiful. Big males in late fall though, are something special. Of course, there are only a handful of fish species that I have looked at and thought "man that is an ugly fish". I am a very forgiving angler in that way, I think I respect fish for what they really are rather them what people say they are. But, when I'm on a stream that has produced two of my biggest wild CT brook trout, these guys are not really a welcome sight on the end of my line:

This stream I was fishing is a weirdo.  I've never quite gotten the drop on it. I can consistently catch fish there, but for a brook trout stream in southern New England it behaves rather odd. The fish seem very nomadic, and I've spent whole days here fishing really great water in fishy conditions without even a hint that there were fish there. I've read about the random migratory behaviors of brook trout in Labrador. Fish there will move as much as 60 miles in a week, not just straight upstream either. You can't count on a riffle producing fish every day there, fish will be there one day and be gone the next. And they could be right back there the day after that. I think the fish in this little CT stream have a similar lifestyle. There aren't a lot of them, the average size is, well, above average, and they don't sit still. It makes this what I call a  'quality over quantity stream'. You are never going to catch 30 fish in day here, but you might catch a 14 inch brookie if you stick with it and really know what you're doing.

The rod for the day was 7'6" 5wt CGR, which may seem a heavy rod for a small stream, but at times it is useful for line control and punching longer casts under the brush. You still get a good pull out of a 7 inch brook trout on a fiberglass 5wt. The fly of choice is my favorite fly: the Ausable Ugly. Rich Garfield really made a winner with that one. I like it more than a all of my own patterns, and although I'm partial to the Hare of the Dog, Pine Special, Crazy Shrimp, and Floss Pinkie, the Ugly puts them all to shame.

My first brookie came an hour and a half into the outing. The second came half an hour after the first, the third another hour minutes later, and the fourth and final about 35 minutes after the third. Like I said, not a number stream.

The third brookie was the show stopper, the fish I was looking for. He was gorgeous: dark olive back, deep orange spots and belly with the trademark late fall black shading, bright white fins, big broad tail, deep purple mouth with gnarly teeth... this was a brookie worthy of the name. Though not the biggest fish in the stream, it was one of those I deemed worthy of reflection, so after he kicked away I did just that. I sat and meditated for a couple minutes before going back to working the water. I think there are a lot of young anglers in this age of instant gratification that could benefit from that every now and then.

Release a special fish, sit back, breath the fresh air, and take in the surroundings. These are the things that make life worth living.

Pre-spawn Brown Trout Bite, PTHW Style

Some rivers' fish are already completely post spawn. That was definitely the case for the Farmington. I was there Saturday afternoon and the fish we lethargic, slow, just all around boring. So I stayed closer to town on Sunday, on my part time home river, where the water is generally abnormally warm in the winter. I have yet to see shelf ice there, even on 24 degree days. 

The fish there also have an affinity for meat flies. Nymphing has accounted for three of my wild browns there. Streamers, probably 30. I wasn't quite sure what to expect on the river this time, my last visit had been in very early fall. I was going to keep my eye out for redds, I expected to find at least a few. There were none. That fact, along with the behavior and holding positions of the fish, told me they are probably going to spawn within the next two weeks, but haven't even started yet.

I was pretty limited in my streamer selection, having left my articulated streamer box open at the tying desk with three grey maraceivers drying out. Oops. I had two woolly buggers, one white and one black and olive, one Granato's Brown Trout Sasquatch, and one Coffey's Sparkle Minnow. I used the Sparkle Minnow all day. On bigger water I would probably have gone with the Sasquatch but I wanted to get the small fish today too. I only wavered for two minutes with a nymph trying to get a specific fish, which did not work out as expected. More on that soon....

My first fish came in the first pool. It was a holdover rainbow, which I found interesting. This river suffers from warm summer water. Last winter in all the trips I made I didn't catch anything but wild browns, so I kind of expected the spring stockers to last only a short time. I guess they made it pretty well. Huh.

I struggled up until the first bridge, missing some good takes and getting frustrated by ducks that insist on doing everything in their power to spook the fish. 

After the first bridge I started hooking up, and was pleased to catch mostly wild browns. In all, three wild rainbows and 12 wild browns, which made this far and away my best day on this river. Every once in a while you get a really crazy streamer bite, it seems like every fish you run your fly by wants a piece of it. This was that kind of day. I had one fish solidly hooked for 4 seconds. It came free but decided to just hammer the fly again. Three others followed the fly to the rod tip then planted themselves there, hitting the fly cast after cast until I hooked them. I wish the 18-26 inch fish would do that. The average size today was between 8 and 12 inches, which is pretty good for a river this size.

So, about the short time I spent nymphing. I had moved a small fish that I though may have been a wild brookie, and as I haven't yet caught one in this river I figured I should at least try to catch this one. I didn't. But I did catch a little dace, which was, to my surprise, a long nose dace! A new species, completely by accident! I'm thankful and relieved to have finally gotten one of these little bastards... they've been giving me a hard time for months. 63 down, don't think I'll get the 7 more I need to reach the goal I had set for myself this year at this rate.

And this is why I love fishing my part time home water. Who else wants to cast to a wild brown holding in a discarded tire using a busted up shopping cart as a platform? It's that gritty urban trout stream kind of appeal. Not everyone likes it. "Trout never live in ugly places." HA! Watch this....

The Best of Late Fall

Bear with me for the next two weeks everyone, my computer crashed on Friday so it's going to be touch and go for me as far as work and posting regularly. My new computer should arrive on or by Saturday. I've got most of my data backed up in some form or another so I won't loose nearly everything if nothing can be recovered from my hard drive, but there were a few things I was hoping to show you eventually that at this point I think are probably gone. Notably my biggest totaug on the fly and some really cool shots of a submarine leaving Groton. Not a huge set back, but an annoyance for sure. 

Back to what I was hoping to write and post on Friday... Thursday afternoon and night were warm, comparatively. It actually warmed up throughout the night until the front passed. It made for good fishing conditions, both while the sun was up and after. I got to fish for brook trout and stripers. Two very different native fish in very different habitats. 

I payed my favorite brook trout stream a four hour visit, hoping I would be in time for the kind of fishing I got last November when some of the smaller fish were spawning and lots of their comrades were waiting for the eggs. That was not the case today, although egg flies were top producers. It was a steak and eggs kind of day. Streamers and egg flies. I also got a couple dry fly fish to bring my month count up to 33.  

Because I don't have my computer to do photo editing, you get to see what things look like when I don't get to work with them. I don't like the saturation I get with the Fujifilm, it doesn't reflect what I see in the field. I can't fix the saturation on these photos right now so they are a but more dull than they should be, but I think they still get the idea across. These brookies were stunning.

Well after dark, I unpacked the small stream gear and replaced it with saltwater tackle. Time to chase striped bass. I love night fishing. I love the feeling I get when I step into the black water. I love the moment I get hit, not knowing exactly what the moments after will bring. Alec and I fished from 8:00 until midnight, catching the last portion of the ebb and the first half of the flood. My favorite

Schoolie bass are extremely ravenous, especially at night. The second spot Alec and I visited was absolutely stacked with fish I was swinging flies, just giving them a little bit of action. The fish were hitting ever cast, almost always within a short part of the swing. We stood there on the rip rap, wind at our backs, catching schoolie after schoolie for and hour. That's just fun. Sometimes easy action is just what you need. The hunt for the big one, though, goes on.