A Good Run

The Connecticut Yankee has been here in one form or another since 2008. It's been great to share many memorable outdoor experiences with others, but this blog also allows me to look back on trips that I may have otherwise forgotten about years down the road. Over the last few months, I have been posting much less but it is all for positive reasons. Big things have been happening in life that have cut down my time on the water and, to a greater extent, my time documenting it.

For the better part of three decades, I have had little in the way of any real responsibilities, which has allowed me to fish my tail off and blog about it. Now with a new house, job, grad school and, most importantly, a new family member on the way, some of things that I used to take for granted have taken a back seat, and it is all good.

I am a very lucky man. Fishing, writing and photography have filled me with lifelong memories, introduced me to amazing characters and brought me to incredible places. By no means am I hanging up the rod, reel or camera. I will be sure to make time to hit the stream, beach, and ice, but finding time to share those trips online won't be getting any easier. I will post here when I can, but, in the meanwhile, thanks for the good run. 

Peace. 

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. 

Go Time

It's the eve before our favorite trip of the year and even Mother Nature's belated April fool's joke of snow this morning could not spoil it. The traditional opener of Connecticut's trout season is just days away and we are going to celebrate on the banks of the Farmington River the best way we know how, by camping, fishing, eating and drinking with good friends and family.

It's funny the way anticipation for this trip always builds weeks in advance--time seems to slow to a helgramite's pace just before we leave and then shifts to warp speed when we're actually there. To set the table for another memorable celebration of spring, here are some posts from the last few Opening Days: 2013, 2012, 2011, and 2010.

Tight lines!

What it's all about!

Like A Pro

I have a knack for bringing family members fishing in undesirable conditions, like the time I took my brother out in search of his first striped bass in 30-knot winds or when I brought my wife fly-fishing for the first time and she took a dip in a swollen Farmington River. Well, as they say, the best time to fish is when you can, so when my wife expressed interest in taking another stab at her first trout on the fly I jumped at the chance. As luck would have it, the morning we chose to have another go felt more like March than April and the water was high and cold. It's always fun to share things you're passionate about with your partner, but patience was running thin on both parties after two spots proved void of life. Before throwing in the towel, however, we drove by an iconic pool on the Farmington without an angler in sight, which is pretty rare for this time of year. We went up to the head of the run and things started coming together with her best drifts of the day. The Fish Gods must have been in a good mood because just as a sliver of sun poked through the clouds, my wife's strike indicator hesitated as a dark, feisty rainbow trout ate the green, buggy nymph on the end of her line. A panicked fight ensued before I ninja-swiped the trout with my net long before the trout was ready to give up. It was all high-fives and smiles until it was time to hoist the slimy captive for photographic proof. After a few laughable attempts, she gripped and grinned like a pro then sent the beautiful creature back to the depths so someone else can experience that same wonderful feeling down the road.

The smile says it all!

The Wall

I have always admired the walls of tackle shops adorned with surfcasting lures. At one of my favorite spots, Rivers End in Old Saybrook, hanging above the plugs for sale are dozens of retired ones, each with its own story to tell. Not only are plug walls cool to look at, it's a smart and easy way to organize them. For too long I've stored my collection in large plastic boxes. I'm not saying that's not a good way to stay organized, it can be and often is. But to rifle through boxes when preparing for a trip can be time consuming and frustrating. Cherry-picking them off a wall is much more preferable to me. And when I'm not fishing, I can spend hours just playing with the lures like I did with green plastic army men when I was seven years old. 

So I recently went to one of those big box stores that shall remain nameless and, for under $40, picked up some 2'x4's, a large section of peg board and some peg board hooks and, voilà!, my new plug wall was born. It doesn't matter that I probably definitely surf fish with eels and bunker more than lures these days, the wall looks pretty badass and when I'm in the middle of a Chinese fire drill getting ready for a impromptu surfcasting session, at least it will save me a little preparation time.