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.

Fresh Tracks

One of the last brushes with winter found me in the woods along a wild trout stream. The snowfall had just ceased but still clung to everything. When the sun poked out, it melted fast and poured down like rain from the canopy. The woods were quiet and my lone footprints meant the trout had yet to see a fly that day. It was one of the better days I had spent on the water in some time. 

Link to video.

Branching Out

Anglers are a funny bunch. We can get pretty comfortable in certain stretches of water that treat us well. Whether in fresh or saltwater, we all have our favorite spots. Often times we grow complacent and keep going back to those comfort zones while ignoring other areas or bodies of water entirely. I am guilty of this. I have been fishing one small stream off and on for over a decade, yet in all that time I have only seen about a mile of it. A select rotation of riffles and pools usually produce a healthy lot of wild browns and native brookies on every visit. It's a quick hit that's not far from home for me, a good option for when I don't have the luxury of a full day on the water (full day on the water...Ha!). 

Catching fish in familiar water is fun. I wouldn't keep doing it if it wasn't. I didn't see a need to explore any more of this particular stream. Hell, I hardly ever re-rigged or changed flies--a small pheasant tail nymph under a Stimulator fooled 90% of my trout here. This spring, however, I forced myself to branch out to water up and downstream of my usual haunts. No rods were carried on the first two scouting walks. I took some photos and mental notes at each run I would have fished. One thing I noticed right away was that the dry-dropper technique wasn't well suited for much of the new water I encountered. It was back to the basics with a method and fly pattern responsible for hooking me, and likely thousands of others, on fly fishing in the first place. Many years have gone by since I tied and last fished a small black and olive Woolly Bugger, but like a good bird dog it went right back into action without skipping a beat.

When I finally found time to fish the sections I scouted, the first pool I gravitated to was deep, slow and littered with woody debris--a haven for wild trout. I must have pricked 10 char in that hole alone on my trusty bugger, most of which could fit in the palm of my hand. Feisty, dark fish that acted like they hadn't seen a fly in some time. A handful of heftier brook trout darted from the darkness to pounce my streamer, but any dinosaur brown trout in this new stretch remain elusive for now. It was a short outing, but one of the most productive 90 minutes of fishing numbers-wise I've ever had on this stream. The best part about that day is that I only fished a fraction of the water I scouted. I'm pumped to get back there. I don't get out quite as much as I used to, but I find myself looking forward to the trips more than ever.

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. 

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!

Walks in the Woods

Saltwater has dominated my fishing for the last few months, yet something about the fall gives me the urge to stalk wild trout hiding in thin blue lines in the woods. It had been months since I last tied on a nymph pattern, but as I knelt down beside the stream a size #18 pheasant tail stuck out like a sore thumb in my fly box. I attached the fly to a short section of tippet and attached to the hook shank of a bushy Stimulator dry fly. That simple dry-dropper combo has become my all-time favorite small stream method over the years. It wouldn't disappoint on this day either. It is an awesome sight watching the dry fly get sucked below the surface from the pull of a native brookie or wild brown. While getting outside was the main goal, a few trout to the hand was a welcome bonus!

Just a few days later, our family took a hike along another beautiful small stream. No trout were caught this day, but we did encounter a few feisty fallfish. This native species readily takes nymphs and dry flies and can be fun to tangle with on light tackle. They also make great ice fishing bait for northern pike. Murphy, the family golden retriever, had the most fun of all on the hike, spoiling many a good pool by jumping in before I could get a cast off.

A Wild Saturday

My good buddy Aaron and I visited an old haunt of ours on Saturday in search of wild brown and native brook trout. The small stream was still on the high side after the major rain event that hit the region earlier in the week. The water was still gin-clear, however, and very fishable. The warm sun spiked the water temperature to a high of 54 degrees and a seine net sample revealed a variety of menu options, with an abundance of cased caddis.

Photo credit: Aaron Swanson

 

We spent much of the day nymphing with weighted flies; a method we haven't spent too much time using here--and for many stretches, it proved very effective. At times the tight quarters made wielding long rods difficutlt, but the extra reach helped maintain our stealthy approach.



Photo credit: Aaron Swanson

A few fish came unbuttoned early, but we eventually settled into a groove and landed a fair amount of trout. A few stockers migrated into this Wild Trout Management Area with the heavy flows, but the majority were stream-born and flawless.



Photo credit:  Aaron Swanson



The extremely mild weather was a welcomed treat, and it felt good to be back on a stream that we spent many a day on during college. It felt even better to have her cough up some gems. Until next time, tight lines...