A walk in the woods

Nora and I hiked about 7 miles of the Tunxis trail, out by Barkhamsted reservoir on Saturday. On our journey, we found a few Horn of Plenty mushrooms, but apparently we were late because we found many more decaying ones. Enough for the fry pan. Also discovered a little trout stream that feeds a pond. I spooked a bunch of brookies, which was pretty cool. Here are some photos:







One other thing... does anyone have a guess what this might be?



I think it might be a button Hen of the Woods, but I'd like to hear some other guesses.

Farmington - 8/15/07

Fished the river tonight with Jeff B. Let's just say somewhere between Hitchcock and Church Pool. After a slow start, I moved up into some pocket water and had my way with them. It simply wasn't fair. I lost count, but ended up with 20+ fish, the biggest one taping out at 15" - a nice fat rainbow. Fished mostly with PT's and picked up a few on a BH Prince.





That river is absolutely loaded. It seemed like every conceivable piece of water that might hold a trout did hold at least one. In one mini-hole of bank water, I landed at least 10 and hooked many more.

The last fish of the day was the best, and the proverbial one that got away. After landing the 15 incher, this animal was much heavier, so I'm guessing at least 18" of piscatorial braun. He made a nice upstream run, ripping line off my reel, not quite into my backing, but almost. Then he came charging back at me; I was reeling in line frantically, when he decides to make another run upstream again. He tucked under a rock and then it was game over. Fish 1 Dave 0. Those are the ones you remember.



All in all, a great night out on the river and if anything, I'm honing my skills for steelhead season. It can't get here soon enough.

Shrooms are popping

Went for a walk with Nora and the dogs yesterday to find some chanterelles. These were pretty small, so I think they're just starting to pop.

While in RI over the weekend, we stopped at a farmstand to pick up some corn. I happened to look in one of the bins and they were selling Horn of Plenty (black trumpets) for $9.99/lb. Not bad I thought... They must be coming out now too.

Oh no, they're rising.

Fished the Farmington again last night and ended up with about 8 fish. Even caught a few risers on dries. I hate to be sacriligious, but dry fly fishing is just boring. The only way I can think of that would make it more palatable, would be if you were floating a river. I hate sitting in one spot casting to finicky fish - it's too much of a pain in the ass.

Anyway, here's a few photos from yesterday's jaunt:

Farmington River - 8/05/07

Fished with friend Jeff at the Farmington Sunday night. Got there a little late, so I wasn't able to fish with much light left, but I managed to land 3 - a brown, a rainbow, and a brookie. I like to spread it out a little - OK, so it was just luck, but it was nice to land all three species. To round it off, I landed a little salmon parr, of which there are many in that river.

I told Jeff about this one spot we were at, I had done well there that last time I fished it. He managed 1, but I guess that's better than nothing, right Jeff? Hey Jeff, maybe you should attend one of the nymphing clinics that are held at Harold's? Just a suggestion ;-)

Thanks for bringing the beer, though!

Landed 2 of the 3 on a #12 pheasant tail, tied with a yellow fur thorax. I don't know what they thought it was, but yellow in my flies seems to work for me lately.

Maybe we can get Johnson to come along some night if he's not too busy catching 40" stripers...

Farmington River - Friday Afternoon Hookey

Spent Friday afternoon on the Farmington, fishing with my brother Matt, who was up from Texas for a few days on business. Our other brother John (aka JDog) joined us for awhile. Really wanted to get Matt into some trout, since there are very few places for him to trout fish in Texas. Had to supply him with all the gear necessary, so it took us awhile to get rigged up. Meahwhile, J Dog shows up, slaps his gear on quickly, and heads down to the river before we could drain our first beers. We've been J-Dogged! He gets pick of the prime location.


So, finally we get our acts together and head into the river. I'm the last one down to the river, figuring I'll be there the longest, so I'm in no hurry, and it's just plain hot out - no need to rush! Matt exclaims the JDog has 2 trout. We've been double J-Dogged! That bastard!

It's only a few cast before I'm into a fish, but as it sometimes goes, he's off as quickly as he was on. I have a feeling there will be more on this day.


Matt and I decide to move upstream and we find a nice deep seam that when you look at it you just know that it's loaded with trout. In about 5 minutes, I've landed my 3rd fish, including one little chunky 14" rainbow. I finally get Matt up to my spot to give it a shot. I rig him up properly and show him where to cast, but today is not Matt's day. The fish win, as sometimes they do; more often then not, actually.

We start walking back and JDog shows up. Good timing and we hitch a ride on the tailgate. It's almost time for Matt to catch his flight back to Texas, but we have enough time to swill down a couple more beers and have some laughs. Even when you don't hook up, trout fishing a cold river can be a soothing elixer.

After we say our goodbyes, I set out to fish some new water. It's funny how you can get set into patterns where you fish the same holes, use the same flies and methods. I needed a bit of a change, so I head downstream in search of new pockets. Sometimes the search pays off, as it did for me today. I worked my way through several deep nymphing runs and landed probably a dozen fish, LDR'ed several more. I was using a 2-nymph rig, fishing a pair of Tellicos, or a tellico on top and a small pheasant tail on the bottom. One thing I learned is that when I have nymphs rigged up with 5X and split shot, it's a recipe for tangles. After switching to 4X, my tangle problems went entirely away.

All in all, a very nice evening of fishing. I actually had the whole stretch to myself - which is a rarity on the Farmington these days. Now since I'm on this getting out of old patterns routine, maybe I'll have to consider swithing over to dry flies.... nah!