Big Farmington Browns on the Move

Thank you to my Patrons; Erin, David, john, Elizabeth, Brandon, and Christopher, for supporting this blog on Patreon.

Dad and I made a Farmington run today (10/13/2019). Things worked out quite well, frankly. The day he had time to kill had about the nicest conditions we could have asked for. Maybe had it been cloudy and foggy the fishing would have been better, but maybe not. With fall colors near peak and the rain during the latter half of the week telling the browns it's getting to be near spawning time, quite low water, and a wonderful warm afternoon with high clouds and very little wind, we couldn't go wrong. It was going to be a very pleasant day.

We turned up at the river fashionably late and found it pretty well devoid of anglers. For a warm Sunday, I was impressed by how much breathing room we had. I guess the low water and other pursuits were keeping some people away. Low water doesn't scare me off larger streams and rivers though, as long as the water is cold I'm confident. Quite low water has lead to some of the best dry fly fishing I've ever had, and, believe it or not, some extremely good streamer fishing as well. I've been in plenty of situations where flow increases turned what seemed like a fish-less river into a streamer slayfest, but in the fall on the Farmington I'm every bit as confident in low water as I am with average flows and more confident than with high flows. I know what the fish want to do, which is get to good spawning places. I know where a handful of those places are and where fish stage before they set up on gravel and cut redds I know they're hormonal and therefor pretty "snappy" and aggressive. I think moving fish feed more opportunistically than fish that have been on the same feeding station all day, at least that's what I've observed. So I really should have expected today to be as tremendous as it was. I was also due... the Farmington has been giving me the business for a few years now. It had been a very long time since I'd last caught a large wild fish out of this river. And I'd had chances, many of them. I consistently screwed myself out of big Farmington fish for... I think four year. Yup. That long. In that time span I got a few big stockers (yuck), plenty of small to mid-sized wild fish, and lost probably 30 fish north of 18" and about a dozen WELL over 20", including one that would still be my biggest wild trout had I actually gotten it pinned well, and a few that would be runners up. But let's not dwell. Today was a new day, I was fishing with my dad and it was gorgeous out there.

From the start my strategy was simply to pound pockets and riffles with simple medium size streamers. I worked the fly fast, sometimes on a two hand retrieve, banging a couple casts to each lie then moving on to the next. Honestly, regardless of whether I'm nymphing, fishing wets, or fishing dries, if I'm prospecting this is how I do it on most streams on most days, and I do it wicked quick, quick enough that I know it bothers my fishing partners sometimes. That is completely unintentional. I learned very quickly that my patience with the kind of minutia that some put into even prospecting was limited, so I instead try to put my flies in front of as many fish as I can, using my willingness to take a physical beating to my advantage. For the first half hour today I think I moved 15 fish, most of which did eat the fly, and I missed all of them. That's the roll I'd been on for almost four damn year on this river. But then I broke out of it, right when it mattered most. I dumped the fly into a seems at the top of a run and saw a large fish roll on it immediately. I stripped the fly quickly down hoping the fish would chase, which it didn't. I re-cast and just let the fly tumble down.  This time the fish followed it down and took a swipe. I set into nothing, and the fish started frantically trying to figure out where that piece of meat had gone. I plunked it in front of the fish, watched it take, and set hard. The fight was nothing special, there wasn't much of a chance for the animal to right itself and run or jump in just five or six inches of water. But it really isn't about the fight for me with trout. The less of it there is the less I have to worry about losing the fish. So I made quick work of this one.

So that was a start. Not giant but not at all small, and gorgeously colored up and thick. Just the way I like them. I worked up and down that stretch quickly and got three more smaller but not small wild browns and one rainbow then headed down to where my dad was. He hadn't gotten anything in the pools, but I suspected the fish in the fast water weren't done yet, I certainly hadn't put them all down. We opted to rest the water there and fish a different similar stretch in the meantime. That ended up being a fruitless endeavor, but when we got back to the hotspot nobody was there and my confidence was high. I got to watch Dad play a little chess game with a large male in the primary run, a game he damn near won. We both saw the fish rise once initially, the kind of spectacular downstream head and tail style eat that will replay over and over in my dreams. He then got that fish to move off station for a Royal Wulff, then take a small nymph behind it. The fish won the battle and won it swiftly. But it was quite a show, very much worth the price of admission.

I continued upstream, casting to each lie I'd found a fish in previously. There were fish in all the same spots and some new ones, but most interestingly the fish in spots there had been before were often very plainly not the same fish. These guys are on the move. The spawn approaches. There were even a few early unoccupied redds. Fish will probably set up on redds after the rain and cold we should get on Wednesday.

Near the top, I stripped the fly through the gut of great mini-run, and a fat fish followed it out. She ate, I set, and with more depth to work with than the previous big fish this one actually had some room to pull. But I still had the upper hand, with my 15lb tippet and 5wt. A fat egg wagon hen was soon at hand. Another gorgeous specimen of wild trutta. 

I would have gladly ended on that fish, but the river wasn't done yet. It threw me one final bone, in the form of an even longer, fatter, and more colorful hen.

And that was that, we wrapped up the best Farmington trip I've ever had in terms of high quality fish. Neither of us skunked, we tested our wit against some large wild trout, and the weather was pristine. Considering this is only the third or fourth time I've fished the Farmington this year, I'm very pleased. I may not even get back there this year and I'm fine with that.

I've Had it With These Mother F** Gambusia in This Mother F** State!

Mosquitofish are annoying enough in Florida, where they are supposed to be but make it a real pain to catch. As soon as you've caught one of a species you've caught enough, frankly. I've still got other gambusia to catch in Florida and elsewhere, but I have Eastern and Western so I don't need to catch any more of those. Unfortunately, the find a way. CT doesn't have native gambusia. Noah and I found a new population in a deep Central CT pond this spring while we were looking for bridled shiners and central mudminnows. With a fair degree of certainty we identified them as Western mosquitofish, Gambusia affinis. That was strange and surprising and a little annoying, though it was a new species for both of us, and that whole thing is chronicled here: Mosquitofish in CT, and here: The Mosquitofish Saga Continues.

But those little buggers won't leave me alone, and it has turned me into Samuel L. Jackson. On Saturday, I went poking around some ponds I make it to a couple times a year. It was nothing abnormal, typical early fall bluegills on small dry flies. At least initially. I should have known this wasn't a totally ordinary day when I caught a fish on a hook that the point had broken off of.

Lepomis macrochirus 

Then I decided to visit a tiny pond I don't think I'd ever tried to fish back some trails, near the top of a meadow. My friend Bruce had mentioned to me that there may be some unusual fish in this pond. I didn't doubt it entirely but I will admit I had practically written this pond of as a possible fish holding water body. It was disconnected from anything else with fish and very small. When I got to its edge though, I could see some small fish spook off. I fished the same beetle I still had on from the previous pond for a bit, and I did catch a few very small bluegills. Those obviously weren't anything odd at all, and they were what I was seeing in the margins either.

I tied on the smallest soft hackle I had with me and set about to catch these mystery fish. The size 20 wasn't ideal, it was pretty big, but these tiny things were all over it. Eventually I realized that if I dragged it across the surface the fish would attack it repeatedly and I would be able to feel when they took well enough for a possible hookup. That worked, and low and behold... it was a gambusia. Probably affinis. Maybe holbrooki. 

So, that begs the question. Why? For what reason did someone dump mosquitofish in this tiny secluded pond, where there is no reasonable expectation of them surviving the winter?
And why do I have to keep finding these damn things in this state? If I have to catch some weird invasive species where they haven't been documented yet, I'd much rather it be something more interesting, like a northern snakehead or a flathead catfish, or some wacky one-off aquarium release arowana.
Gambusia are live bearers, that's pretty cool, so I won't give them too much flack. But I don't need to see another CT mosquitofish ever again. Go away.

I stopped at a different pond on the way home, one with no non-natives as far as I can tell, as a way to redeem things some.

Notemigonus crysoleucas

Lepomis gibbosus

Thank you to my Patrons; Erin, David, john, Elizabeth, Brandon, and Christopher, for supporting this blog on Patreon.

A Window Into the Blitz

Before I'd ever caught a striped bass, I was captivated by photographs of numerous bass surfing in a back-lit waves. To me, these photos were the holy grail. I wanted to see and catch fish in that scenario. As time passed though, I didn't care as much about catching them and more about getting my own such photo. The opportunity just never came. I never saw stripers in the curl of the waves, ever. Until this Friday. 

Rick and I started out before sunrise fishing a breachway. It was cold and cloudy, with a northwest wind. I stayed out of the lineup at the end, where most of the fish were, since a fly angler in the rotation can muddle inlet fishing for everyone else there. I went up inside a ways and found some sort of snappers milling around in a shallow spot. This was a surprise, typically by October there aren't many exotics left around, but the water is still very warm. These were probably young cubera, that's about the most common snapper that visits these waters. I got them to chase big flies that they couldn't possibly eat, but anything small enough to eat they ignored. Rick was getting into stripers at the end, and I decided to hike up the beach. I didn't find any fish within range. Rick then got a call from his friend Dave, inviting us to fish with him. 

Dave has a beach permit. This was going to be fun.

We moved around quite a bit at first, found fish very briefly in one spot. Rick and Dave caught a couple, I missed some. We left the beach briefly and watched some fish out of range and a big flock of cormorants feeding on peanuts. Then we got back out onto the sand with a blitz right in front of us. It didn't take long for each of us to hook up. The bulk of the fish were small, the same cookie cutter 2015 fish that have been the norm.

A few though were on the nicer side. Not giants, not remotely big by my standards, but a better tussle on the 10wt.

As things progressed, I spent less and less time casting and more time with the camera, because not only were there some great blitzes going, but as the sky was now clear and the sun bright, I was starting to see lots of bass and baitfish in each wave. The smooth curl before each wave broke provided a window into the blitz, we could now see it from a plain you wouldn't otherwise get to unless you were in the water with the fish. Bait frantically used the wave action to accelerate... but so did the bass, which surfed right into them.

In the two photos below, each elongated dark shadow in the wave are bass. In the second, the peanut bunker these bass were after are also visible, some jumping out of the wave. Splashes in front, in the foamy wash, are bass feeding on the baitfish tumbled and disoriented as the previous waves broke. While I took these shots, bass swarmed around my feet, sometimes even bumping into me.

Then, the best window opened, with bass right in the front, and I hit the shutter button at the right moment.

This is the glorious moment I had waited for. But I can't lie, I was not satisfied with it. I want to get an even better shot. More fish. Closer up. A better angle. It didn't happen on this day. But it will. I won't stop chasing this shot or these fish. I'm in too deep to get out.

Until next time.

Fish for the love of fish.

Fish for the love of places fish live.

Fish for you.

Thank you to my Patrons; Erin, David, john, Elizabeth, Brandon, and Christopher, for supporting this blog.

Fall CT Timber Rattlesnakes

The cooling of the nights through the month of September call many species into action. Winter isn't far, it's time to eat, migrate, and seek shelter. Birds use the pre-frontal northerlies or simply the cover of darkness to fly southward. Marbled salamanders filter into dried vernal pools lay their eggs under rotting logs and leaf litter. Brook trout move upriver to better spawning substrate. Baitfish leave the cooling estuaries and convene on the beaches, met by striped bass, bluefish, false albacore, and bonito that are all responding to the same changes. And timber rattlesnakes start to filter back to their den sites.

 I've visited a location that harbors timbers through late spring and summer on and off for a number years now. But making friends with another herper I incidentally met there this year encouraged me to broaden my scope and learn that area and others better. Frankly in recent years my only concerted efforts to see snakes had been brief visits to this one ledge a couple times a year. More often than not, if I found any other snakes it was while fishing or if I spotted a nice piece of plywood begging to be lifted on the way to or from fishing. My herping was pretty limited to that and going out on rainy spring nights to observe the movements of frogs and salamanders on their annual migration to breeding sites. But the kid that couldn't pass a rotted log without rolling it has awakened in me again. I've had a desire to see, catch, and photograph snakes more in the last couple months than I have in years. I'd never lost the love, I just got distracted. But now I'm back and I'm more excited than ever. And this fall has already provided my with phenomenal opportunities to see and photograph timber rattlesnakes. I've seen more timber rattlesnakes in the last couple weeks than I had seen in the last six years combined, and really I haven't even hit the conditions just right yet. And I will. But what I've got now is pretty good.

When I spotted my first neonate, I was blown away. It was perfect in every way, seemingly innocent and benign, and truly imperiled by the very world it had been born into, and yet simultaneously bearing a potent venom that would make them very dangerous... if they weren't remarkably docile and reclusive animals. Bites are nearly always a result of handling. I won't handle a venomous snake unless the uncommon circumstance where one needs to be moved for its own safety or the safety of others arises. But I am comfortable getting within range of some timbers. This neonate wanted me to think he was a rock or a leaf or a bit of bark. He wasn't going to move and blow his cover.

Adult female timbers live birth typically about 10 already quite large babies. Some are big enough to eat mice even before their first shed. Birthing takes a lot out of the females. They need to take a log break before they birth again, if they even survive the ordeal at all. Two of the females I saw being followed by neonates back to the den were in pretty rough shape.

One other was one of the biggest and best looking I've seen yet. I got to watch this individual interact with the neonates following her. She interacted with me as well. She trying to feel me out as well, to see if I was a threat to her or her young. She first moved over to the closest neonates out in the open, partially covering the closer of the two. She stayed there for awhile before quietly moving underneath the closest rock.

With cooler weather here, my time to observe these animals year this is limited but also the best little window there is.

I'll leave you with a simple message. We are lucky to still have some of these snakes in CT. Very, very lucky. Respect them. Protect them. Poachers, development, and persecution threaten CT's native snakes. Ending all three is an uphill battle, but I , for one, will never stop fighting it.

Until next time.

Fish for the love of fish.

Fish for the love of places fish live.

Fish for you.

Thank you to my Patrons; Erin, David, john, Elizabeth, and Christopher, for supporting this blog.

Meadow Water Multi-species

Opportunities have been slim lately to explore new water, but I did for a bit last Saturday. I had a couple of options, including some places I'd already fished a time or two. I opted for the unknown. a meadowy bit of river that looked good on the map but could potentially prove nearly impenetrable on foot. It was tough going but doable, and I doubted many had fished this water through the peak vegetation months. Bass, pickerel, fallfish, and holdover trout were all possible.  

I started out casting to rises with an AK Best Winged Beetle, and this yielded some fallfish and a redbreast sunfish. But the structured bank water was calling my name and it was asking to be attacked with a streamer.

The first assailant on the streamer was a large holdover trout. It didn't connect but it did prove I'd made the right move, a motion seconded by a chain pickerel a short time later.

After a few small bass, I did land a pair of holdover rainbows. Not really the quality I was looking for, but they fought well and really hammered the flies. I should describe my technique now, as it's one often ignored by trout fisherman in this area. Banging banks with streamers is nothing new, the fly pattern I was using was nothing special and not important, but my receive would appear unconventional to many. After slapping the heavy fly down hard next to the far bank, I let it fall to a count of 3-10 seconds, depending on the depth and current speed, then retrieved it with a quick two hand retrieve. I find that, though a pause is often killer, aggressive meat eater trout often slam a streamer in constant motion. I've seen the two hand retrieve applied a lot elsewhere for freshwater fish, but I didn't pick up on it for New England salmonids until I saw Ben Bilello do so. That was in the context of getting constant motion when there isn't enough current to appropriately swing a fly for salmon. However it works well as an aggressive trout tactic too, casting across, up and across, and straight upstream.

As I right this, we're getting proper October weather in stark contrast to yesterday's heat and humidity. It gets me excited, though the sense that time is running out is very much there.

Until next time.

Fish for the love of fish.

Fish for the love of places fish live.

Fish for you.

 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, john, Elizabeth, and Christopher, for supporting this blog.