The Beginning of Winter Fishing

It's that time of year again: frozen feet and guides, lethargic fish and numb hands. Only 4 or so months till spring! Might as well make the best of it and try to battle it out with some trout. Today's venue was the Farmington River, in the TMA. It was actually a fairly pleasant day, weather-wise, but if you get your hands wet, they do have a tendency to get a little numb.

The fishing actually wasn't that bad, but I wouldn't say it was great, either. I wanted to break in the new Grey's Streamflex 10 ft 3 weight. It is a beauty, perfect for euro-nymphing. Ended up going 6 for 7 in moderately high water conditions. Nothing huge, the fish below coming in at only 15 or so inches. I can't wait to see what a legit hog feels like on this rod.

Ammonite Nymph

Been reading up on this bad boy in the past few days. Looks like another effective pattern in the right hands. There's a couple of things I like about this fly: First off, it's damn near bullet-proof. Second, it's so general, it could be representative of anything, just tie it in various colors and sizes.

I didn't have all the correct materials to tie with, so I'm not done experimenting yet. Doubtless, I will come up with some sort of variation to make the tying a bit easier. I was never one for spending 40 minutes at the vise for one fly. Stay tuned for updates on this fly, but here is a facsimile of what it should look like.

Shark's Caddis Larva

Came across an interesting pattern recently on Global Fly Fisher called Shark's caddis. I thought that with a few minor tweaks it could be a killing fly as applied to Euro-nymphing techniques.

Some of the changes I made:
-Adding a ribbed shellback (either scud back or magic foil)
-Mark the front 2 or 3 thoracic segments with brown permanent marker
-Fox squirrel, touch-dubbed for the thorax
-A layer of .015 lead for an underbody

Otherwise, the tying technique is virtually the same. Also, you could add a touch of Prism or Ice dubbing into the fox squirrel for a little extra eye catching sparkle. I particularly like the segmentation of this fly, which is important when trying to imitate the naturals. The rabbit that is wound into the antron abdomen gives this fly a nice slightly hairy effect. It is important to use the rabbit very sparingly. Too much and it would overpower the segmented abdomen. I would tie these on a barbless sedge hook in the 10-16 size range.

This is what the dried fly looks like


The wet version




Under water

More Steelhead

This was the annual trip I take with my brothers to western NY, and sometimes PA. It wasn't in the cards for PA this year due to low water, but we managed to hit some NY tribs just right. Overall, a great time and the fish were very cooperative, with most days resulting in double digit hookups. Fished mostly new areas on the Catt, and a few other locations. It's always worth it to check out new water and even better when you can score a few.

Some photos:

Steelhead

1st trip of the year was up to the Salmon river in Pulaski, NY. This was a 1 day up and back and it was well worth it. Multiple hook ups and many more smiles.

Wow - I didn't realize it's been so long since I posted anything. I mean, I hate to disappoint the thousands, if not 10's of thousands of followers this blog has! Honestly, I've been out fishing a bunch recently. It's the prime time of year and I've been hitting streams both local and out of state.

Look for some substantive posts in the next few days. I've got much to report on with fish being caught like this:



Also, I'm thinking about setting up an alternate site to Steelhead Addiction, since most of the my posts have been about trout fishing and not steelhead per se. If and when I do, I will link up to it here.

Time to try something different

In the past 12 months, I've pretty much been exclusively nymphing with the various euro-techniques whenever I've gone out fishing. Considering where I was a year ago and where I am now, it's a night and day difference. Having done so much of the same basic thing over and over again for so long, I decided I finally have that down to a reasonable degree and perhaps I needed to change it up a little.

I'd been giving this a lot of consideration over the winter and got to tying up various wet flies, both winged and soft-hackled, so I'd be ready to try it out this spring. Well, today was the day and I really felt out of my element. I had to leave all the nymphs in the truck so I would not be tempted if I wasn't rewarded in short order.

The Farmington river was the venue today. I reasoned I might be able to get a bunch of trout in the Central Riffle, since many people pass over it and the water type there is perfect for wets. As it turned out, I only had one brief tug on the end of my line there. Needless to say, I was disappointed.

So I bagged that and went up to the Church Hole area. My intent was to fish the riffles above the pool. A couple more brief tugs under the bridge. I was thinking "I don't know what the fuss is about, these wet flies suck". I kept working upstream into a different riffly section. Finally, things began to turn around and I had like 5 hookups in short order. I mean like a fish every third or fourth cast. I went from disdainful skeptic to believer in about 15 minutes.

This is the first brown that came to the net. Yeah, it's a stocker, but it is a legit first fish on a wet:


This one was a pleasant surprise, a nice 9 inch brookie:


Encouraged, I kept working at it, fishing in spots I would normally pass up if I were nymphing, especially euro-nymphing. I waded up to a shallow flat and noticed a few fish rising. Perfect wet fly opportunity, right? Threw it in there a bunch of times using various presentation techniques, but was not able to interest the trout. Finally, as I was pondering my next move, something heavy hit. I got excited when the rod was bent over fairly sharply. Could be a sweet holdover I thought.

I did land the fish and it was a good sized trout, but it was perhaps one of the ugliest stockers I've ever caught! The first thing I noticed were the almost complete lack of spots. This thing resembles a giant golden shiner I thought!


Then I notice the tail and was thoroughly bummed:

It looked like it had seen a few battles, to say the least. I hate to be negative on a trout, but this one just did not leave me feeling all warm and fuzzy.

All said and done, I learned a bunch today and realize this is only the beginning of my learning curve with the wets.

Another Fine Spring Day

Trillium

Bloodroot


... of trout fishing! When I got down to the river this morning, the air temps were in the 40's. By quittin' time, my thermometer read 85 degrees! So I went from freezing my ass off to sweating my ass off in a mere 4 or 5 hours.

Fished one of my favorite rivers today, the Shepaug, and had pretty good fortune. I ended up with 14 fish, of which only 1 was a fresh stocker. I know this for fact because today was the first day they stocked the river. I don't know how long some of these fish have been in the river, but they're generally very healthy looking; beautiful fins and scales and full of fight.

The caddis were out in force today. Lots of bugs migrating upstream and many of them were laying eggs. I don't know my caddis very well, but they were about a size 14 with mottled wings and a black belly and green back. My guess is hydropsyche.
Picked off a few in some pocket water. It's nice to see the fish moving up into feeding areas. That's a sure sign that the water temps are creeping up to the trout's optimal temperature range. In fact, when we started fishing, the water temp was 51. By 3pm, it had risen all the way to 61. Before you know it, it'll be too warm.


Then, it will be time to head north!

Connecticut Official Opener

Good day for me today. Got to fish one of my favorite rivers that has a closed season in CT and it was well worth the wait. First cast and fish on - that's pretty hard to beat. Here are a few beauties from the day:




Normally, I'd be very satisfied with the results I had today. But sometimes you get a special fish and it makes you sit back and savor the moment. This is what I mean:



That fish was measured at 23 inches. Fins were perfect. Must be a 2 or 3 year holdover. After I landed it, I sat down on the bank and cracked and actually enjoyed a crappy Miller beer. I think I was shaking for like 15 minutes after the battle was over.

Naugy TMA

The river is loaded with stocker rainbows right now. You may lock intoa few holdovers too, as we had a cool summer last season and surely many of them survived the heat.

I did pretty well today, hooking 11 and landing 9, all rainbows. The quality of the fish is very good. I would say the average fish is approximately 15 inches, but I've heard credible reports of larger ones being caught.

Here is one that was particularly photo-worthy:


I worked a different stretch of river today, just to see if they were in there. I took me about 5 casts to find out! Then, I worked my way upstream, hitting all the likely spots. Each hole had at least several fat 'bows in it.

The productive flies for today were an Olive/Orange woven caddis and the Firefly, which is basically a pheasant tail with a hot orange bead. The stocker rainbows love that bright color, whether its orange or pink. I have yet to play around with other colors.

The Firefly:


and the woven caddis nymph:


I had to stop fishing later in the day. Not because of the pouring rain, but somehow, the last one snapped my rod tip off! This is the second time I'll be sending the TFO 10 footer back. Hopefully it'll be the last time.

A Suburban Trout Haven

Here in Connecticut, the regular trout fishing is closed until the 3rd weekend in April. Luckily, there are a bunch of trout management areas that are open all year and they're catch and release. The two major ones are the Farmington and Housatonic river TMA's. The Housy usually runs pretty high this time of year and that's the case now. The Farmington, as great a fishery as it is, gets absolutely pounded all year long. Sometimes you can really score there and other times you end up taking a doughnut.

That being the case, I recently decided to change it up a little and try some areas I haven't fished before. I've been driving by this one river in particular in my work travels through the state, always thinking how good the water looks. In the past, it was one of the most polluted rivers in Connecticut, but is now on the rebound. One of the nice things about that, is few people have fished it, thinking it's devoid of trout and not worth the effort.

I was determined to find out on my own.

I knew from conversations I've had with several DEP biologists that it is a sleeper. Every year they electro-fish some very quality trout out of this stream.

I've been to it twice now, on exploratory missions, and I've been pleasantly surprised; not by the scenery, or how clean the banks are. Nothing could be further from the truth. However, the fish are outstanding. I would say they're averaging 15" each so far.I have yet to catch a recent stocker. Every fish I've caught so far has had perfect fins, tails and scales and have fought aggressively.

Here are a few of the trout, all browns:





I was nymphing most of the time, but I did get several on Slumpbusters and Woolly Buggers.

Mayflies are an indicator species in trout streams. No mayflies = marginal or polluted water to a degree. It's still mid March, yet these mayflies, which I believe are Quill Gordons (Epeorus pleuralis) are starting to show themselves:



Like I said, not the prettiest river, but maybe that is not such a bad thing, as far as fishing pressure goes. Both times I had the place to myself:




I'd like to see how it fishes once the water temps get closer to optimal.

Winter Stoneflies