Change Of Pace

Much of my free time in February is reserved for ice fishing, yet winter fly fishing is always a worthy option. My friends Derrick, Todd and I spent a few hours on the Farmington River yesterday. Air temps crept near 40 degrees, though gusty northwest winds and leaky waders let me know winter was still in the driver's seat. River access wasn't easy--we had to blaze new paths through the snow at both spots we fished. The Farmington was running at a nice level, yet I couldn't tell you exactly what the flow was because one of the gauges used to calculate it was frozen solid. 

It was strictly subsurface fishing this trip and a variety of nymphing methods produced in the right situations. There wasn't a magic fly, yet a few different caddis pupa, midge, and pheasant tail variations took fish, as did off-beat patterns like a pink scud. I had not fly fished since November and it showed, but any day on a fine piece of water like that is well spent. There is a good amount of ice fishing still to be done this season, though the wonderful winter fishery on the Farmington River is never far from thought.

 

Dry-Dropper Success

I took a mental health day Friday and visited the Farmington River. The smell of skunk still lingered from my recent forays in saltwater, so I put the pressure on  myself to land some fish. I struggled a bit in the morning and couldn't move any trout while nymphing. Caddis flies were becoming more active after lunch, so I changed locations and methods then settled into a nice groove.

There were a handful of trout taking caddis on top, yet I had a sneaking suspicion they were gorging on them while emerging to the surface. So I tied on an elk hair X-caddis as my dry fly and dropped a small weighted caddis pupa about 18-inches off the hook shank. This rig was the ticket putting six trout in my net in under an hour. It was the most success I've had to date fishing the dry/dropper method. What I enjoyed most were the hook sets--even the slightest unnatural twitch of my dry fly meant a trout was eating the dropper underneath. And every time I set tight, the hook was perfectly placed in the center of the trout's top lip. What the best of the bunch lacked in size, she made up in quality--a very clean looking brown trout sporting a full adipose fin. It was a peaceful and productive few hours and the confidence gained in the dry/dropper method will prove valuable in similar situations in the future.