Winter Purgatory

Usually my inaugural fish each year is caught while ice fishing in Connecticut. It goes with saying that wouldn't be the case this year. Every day this month at the climate station in Bridgeport has been warmer than normal. The average monthly temperature there of 40.1°F is 8.4° above normal. The same goes for Hartford where the second warmest January on record is underway, 9° higher than average. For ice anglers and snow lovers, we are stuck in winter purgatory; a seemingly permanent state of early March.  

With no ice fishing opportunities within a two-hour drive, I have been looking for other ways to scratch the itch. I had a few hours to myself on a recent afternoon and decided to spend them along a stream I had not seen since May. A fresh rain had the flow in its sweet spot. I started out with the dry-dropper method and never strayed from it. The first combo of flies was my go-to; a #14 Stimulator dry with an #18 bead head pheasant tail nymph trailing below it. Kneeling on the bank beside a familiar riffle, I watched a small wild brown trout attack my dry fly. A surface eat in mid-January for my first fish of 2023. I'll take it. 

After several drifts with no love for my nymph selection, I swapped it out for more of an attractor pattern; a trusty San Juan Worm. That seemed to get their attention and a couple more wild browns quickly came to the net, each slightly bigger than the previous. I also missed one or two others due to late sets on the dry fly. It felt good to wield a fly rod again and shake the rust off. No native brook trout on this trip, and what the browns lacked in size they made up in their beauty. Just gorgeous creatures. 

The second and last stop of the afternoon was a short drive downstream. There were trout rising to what I believe were small winter caddis. I didn't bother embarrassing myself with a cast in this shallow, slow stretch; instead I just watched them feed for a while. I walked up to the next riffle and missed a fish on top during my first drift. That was it. A couple hours of fresh air and a few tight lines. It may not have been ice fishing, but to quote a legendary Stones tune, "you can't always get what you want, but if you try sometime you'll find you get what you need."

Lunch With A View

There are pros and cons to every job. A clear pro of mine is its proximity to a wild trout stream. It's less than a mile from my office. Sometimes I break away and spend lunch breaks beside it stalking wary targets. When the sun is at its highest isn't my preferred time for trout fishing, but it usually means I'm alone. With Muck Boots and a three-weight fly rod stashed in my truck, I can be desk-bound to streamside in five minutes. 

As an obsessed angler with a nine-to-five and a parent of two little ones, it's a major perk to get that small fix on the water amidst the daily grind.  It's even better when it happens on a blue ribbon trout stream like this one. It's refreshing to learn a place as intimately as I've come to know this piece of water. I've fished its entire length, in every month, in all conditions. I've grown quite attached to it and its residents, the best of which are not easy to fool. I've been fortunate to catch and release some gems over the years, but I saw photos of two trout over 20-inches from here in the past year. I'm pretty sure I hooked one on a white Zonker back in the spring and my buddy had one come off at his feet around the same time in the same pool. A trout that size in a stream like this is a horse of a different color. A unicorn. A white whale.

I'll keep taking lunch breaks on the stream as long as I can. Maybe I'll run into one of those unicorns someday, but I'm not complaining.

Wild Trout Fix

I love ice fishing, but won't dwell on an early end to hardwater season. Last week brought with it unseasonal spring-like weather and a hankering for trout fishing. It was tough being stuck inside at work, but I was able to pay a visit to a favorite small stream before heading to the office one morning. It was a short, productive session with six gorgeous trout finding my net. The first two were sizable brown trout for this run that ate my dry fly in the head of the riffle. I was more expecting the dry to serve as an indicator in my dry-dropper rig, but was pleasantly surprised to see the surface eats in February. The next four trout, a mix of brookies and browns, gobbled up a small, beaded pheasant tail nymph. The color and fight of these stream-born trout never gets old. It was also encouraging to see skunk cabbage already sprouting in the woods. A sure sign that spring is near. 

Slump Buster

I dropped the first two fish I hooked in 2017. Both felt heavy and hurt in their own way. One was a northern pike that I lost an arm's length from the ice hole. I never did get a look at her, maybe it was for the better, but by the fight and weight I know it was big enough to be rattled over losing it. 

The other fish wasn't under the ice; it was next to a brush pile in a small stream. I saw the trout's back come out of the water as it crushed my black and olive bugger. I set the hook and she thrashed, spewing my fly ten feet behind me. I let out an "Oh my god. What the F was that?" while the gravity of the situation sunk in. It was definitely another class of fish that I was accustomed to from this stream; something I'd be happy with from the Farmington, yet this was unstocked water a fraction of its size. I was certain it was the largest wild brown I had hooked in more than 15 years of fishing there. That one stung pretty good. I was in a funk to start the new year. 

Cue the January thaw. I went back to the same small stream today during a long lunch at work. The fresh wading boot prints on the snow-packed trail was a punch to my gut. Someone had already fished this stretch today. I blew by some water that I would normally take some casts in to get to the exact lie I pricked the fish from. Along the bank I could see where the angler got into the water and broke shelf ice and stirred up mud. I knew right then that he didn't hook that fish and neither would I this trip. I kept moving upstream and I couldn't escape the fresh prints. I made it to a deep, slow pool screaming to be fished with a woolly bugger. I couldn't get a sniff and to make matters worse, I busted off the streamer on a tree branch, then worked it free with my rod tip, only to lose it for good after it fell to the ground. I walked back downstream dejected. 

Before leaving for work, I had packed two other flies just in case I found myself in a jam like this. Back at the truck, I tied on my bread and butter dry-dropper combo and headed to my Alamo. Work lunch was stretching longer than usual at this point, but for good reason. I needed my first fish of 2017 and to snap out of this mental funk. I approached the honey hole and saw no prints. It was a good feeling knowing my flies would be the first these trout have seen in at least four days since the last snow. And they sure acted like it, too. In quick succession, I landed six trout from the small run. Five browns and a lone brookie, all of which looked healthy and put a bend in my three-weight rod. Each of them took a tiny bead head pheasant tail nymph dropped 18 inches below a stimulator dry fly. This method had worked for me many times in this run and it wasn't going to let me down now. I was on the board for the year and swapped my Muck boots for work shoes and drove back to the office with the smell of fish on my hands. 

Small Water & Good Samaritans

It always nice when business and fishing plans cooperate. Before this last bout of heavy rains, I had a meeting awfully close to a favorite small stream. By early afternoon I was doing my best Clark Kent transformation in a Panera Bread parking lot, shedding a shirt and tie for waders and a 3-weight fly rod. 

There were small blue-winged olives coming off the water when I arrived. The dry-dropper setup already rigged from my last small stream trip was all I needed. A little pheasant tail nymph fished under a Stimulator drew strikes at nearly every pool I knelt beside. It was great connecting to some beautiful trout, taking in the fresh air, and seeing signs of spring emerging all over the place.

A great outing was almost completely erased by my clumsiness, however. Later that night my father called and said that someone had found my camera bag. WTF, my camera bag is missing??? In my haste to get home for dinner, I must have left the waterproof bag, along with its contents of a DSLR and GoPro, back at the parking spot. Thankfully my fishing license was inside and a passerby with a good heart had found it. He looked up my last name in the white pages and dialed my parents house, leaving his name and phone number. We connected the following day and I picked up the bag on his front porch, leaving a thank you note and some hand-tied trout flies in its place.

If you are reading this Pat, thank you! I am a lucky man and will be paying it forward and then some. 

A Call For Action

Not often do I use this blog as a pulpit, but this is an important issue and something that could be avoided if enough anglers speak up. I fear that many Connecticut anglers don't realize what is at risk and by the time they find out, it could already be too late. So here is the skinny...

The Kensington State Fish Hatchery, one of only three CT DEEP hatcheries, will shut down due to budget cuts if we don't voice our opinions to the powers at be. The key is to make the State of Connecticut aware that this decision will ultimately cost us money instead of saving it by hurting fishing license sales and other spending by trout and salmon anglers. Every phone call, email and letter reiterating this message to members of the General Assembly's Appropriations Committee, specifically the Conservation & Development Subcommittee, will help our cause.

In the fine print of the proposed State budget, the eighth bullet down on page 194 recommends reducing the number of state-run hatcheries (read: Kensignton) to the tune of saving $149,910. I realize the State has a spending problem and cuts need to be made somewhere, but should we really be cutting things that generate more money than they cost to run? I would argue that getting rid of everything this hatchery brings to the table could cost us much more than $150K. An uniformed legislator may look at the overall production of our three hatcheries and easily write off Kensington because it's responsible for only 10% of the trout stocked in Connecticut waters. However, this facility is a prime example of quality over quantity and you have to look deeper to find out what freshwater anglers would really lose.

Kensington Hatchery is unique because it is responsible for all of Connecticut's Seeforellen brown trout, which are a German strain of trout that grow very large. The facility in question just so happens to have the only disease-free stock of Seeforellens left in the nation and closing it would mean tossing years of hard work right out the window. The hatchery produces approximately 50,000 catchable size trout and 700 surplus broodstock trout annually that are stocked in our most important trout waters. In addition, 250,000 of its trout fry and parr are used annually in programs to enhance sea run and wild trout populations. Simply put, Kensington fish live longer, grow larger, and are wilder in nature than trout coming from our other hatcheries.

Seeforellen brown trout thrive in Connecticut lakes thanks to Kensington Hatchery.

But this is not just about trout. Approximately 2,000 broodstock Atlantic salmon are produced at Kensington Hatchery and stocked annually into the Naugatuck and Shetucket Rivers, as well as a handful of lakes. The broodstock salmon fishery we have now is quite popular and attracts anglers from around the Northeast. In fact, it is estimated that Connecticut's Atlantic salmon fishery is responsible for 5,000 – 7,000 trips per year and those anglers spend a combined $500,000 doing so. If Kensington closes there will be no more broodstock salmon stocked in our waterways! Furthermore, the Salmon in the Classroom program, known as "Fish Friends," will no longer exist in the 90 Connecticut schools that now receive salmon eggs, and the last of the remaining salmon fry released in our rivers and streams, about 300,000 per year, will also go bye-bye if Kensington closes its doors. 

Chew on these numbers for a minute...

* 251,000 state residents take 5.4 million fishing trips and spend $198 million per year.
* 51,000 non-residents take 457,000 fishing trips and spend $45 million per year in CT.

* Recreational fishing supports over 4,400 jobs in CT. 

* Trout are the most sought after gamefish species in Connecticut attracting approximately 2.1 million fishing trips per year and generating ~$50 million per year in annual expenditures having a net economic impact of $67.5 million per year. 

* Approximately $2.8 million in annual license revenue is generated by trout anglers in Connecticut.

* Approximately 100 lakes and ponds and over 200 rivers and streams are stocked annually with trout.

* The overall benefit to cost ratio for Connecticut’s Trout Program is 25 to 1.

So what exactly is the rational again behind saving $149,910 by closing Kensington Hatchery?
 

Below is the contact information for Connecticut Senators and Representatives who have some say in the editing of the fish hatchery budget line item. Please take a few minutes and reach out. Keep in mind that phone calls have more of an impact than emails, but anything is better than nothing. Thank you!

Sen. Bob Duff (Co-Chair) Duff@senatedems.ct.gov; (860) 240-0414
Rep. Bryan Hurlburt (Co-Chair) Bryan.Hurlburt@cga.ct.gov; (860) 240-8585
Sen. Clark Chapin (Ranking Member) Clark.Chapin@cga.ct.gov; (860) 240-8816
Rep. Craig Miner (Ranking Member) Craig.Miner@housegop.ct.gov; (860) 240-8700
Sen. Beth Bye Email; (860) 240-0428
Rep. Ezequiel Santiago Ezequiel.Santiago@cga.ct.gov; (860) 240-8585
Rep. Charles D. Clemons Charles.D.Clemons@cga.ct.gov; (860) 240-8585
Rep. Peter Tercyak Peter.Tercyak@cga.ct.gov; (860) 240-8585
Rep. Patricia Dillon Patricia.Dillon@cga.ct.gov; (860) 240-8585
Rep. Mitch Bolinsky Mitch.Bolinsky@housegop.ct.gov; (860) 240-8700
Sen. Andrew Maynard Email; (860) 240-0591
Rep. Jay Case Jay.Case@housegop.ct.gov; (860) 240-8700
Rep. Patricia Billie Miller Patricia.Miller@cga.ct.gov; (860) 240-8585
Rep. Melissa Ziobron Melissa.Ziobron@housegop.ct.gov; (860) 240-8700
Rep. Kevin Ryan Kevin.Ryan@cga.ct.gov; (860) 240-8585
Rep. Roberta Willis Roberta.Willis@cga.ct.gov; (860) 240-0271


Connecticut's broodstock Atlantic salmon fishery will be gone for good if Kensington closes.

Change Up

With the lack of ice fishing opportunities across Connecticut, I found myself dusting off fly fishing gear this weekend.  There is a small watercourse not far from me that I've heard good things about, yet never had fished before.  The stream corridor was skinny, only a rod's length in many places.  A short fly rod was helpful to tuck casts into tight spaces.  I stuck with the method that's been working best for me on small streams as of late, dry-dropper.  Two beautiful wild brown trout fell for a tiny pheasant tail nymph hung below an elk hair stimulator on the inaugural trip.  The chunkier of the two took a swing and a miss at the dry fly indicator, only eat the nymph on the very next drift.  The dry fly abruptly sank under water and I set the hook sending the brown to the air. 

As always, it was a great experience to learn a new piece of water.  Having a little success with cooperative stream-born trout certainly added confidence and enhanced the trip.  I look forward to exploring more of this little gem of a stream soon.  If I can't be ice fishing in February, at least there are some quality "plan B's" to fall back on.  The following day a friend and I fly fished a bigger waterway and found larger trout to go along with it.  Stay tuned for a Farmington River report later in the week - for now it's back to the grind after a long weekend well spent.   

Stocking Stuffers

By this time last year, there was a sheet of black ice on several bodies of water in the northwest hills of Connecticut, but Mother Nature can be a sick and twisted lady. Officially two days into winter, there is not a hint of safe ice anywhere in the state. We had thunderstorm and 60-degree temps this week on top of it. But ice or not, there are still some fine fishing opportunities to be had in late December. 

My friend Matt is home from Virginia for Christmas. He is a true fishing bum at heart that hasn't got on the water much lately, other than everyday aboard an aircraft carrier in the US Navy. With a short window of time, we settled on a quick trip to a local wild trout stream. Weather forecasters predicted conditions on the gnarly side, but were happy they were wrong and enjoyed a beautiful morning. 

When we pulled up the flow looked especially sexy thanks to some rain the previous day. We shared one rod between us, a 7.5-foot, 3-weight small stream special. The rigging since my last trip in November hadn't changed; a bushy dry fly serving as an indicator, with a tiny tungsten bead pheasant tail pattern about 18-inches below it. It didn't take more than a dozen drifts to stick a small brown trout and get us on the board.  For the next two hours, we hiked through the woods stopping at fishy pools that treated us well in the past. 

The fish were hungry on this morning. About a half a dozen wild brown trout came to the hand before it was quitting time and we probably pricked twice as many. It's hard to beat the colors on stream-born trout, even if they are only six inches long. All in all, it was great to fish with Matt again and I hope we can hit the water  for a longer trip on his next deployment. 

Here's to a healthy and fish-filled 2012!