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!