Making A Great Place Better

It's no secret that the West Branch of the Farmington River is among the very top trout fishing destinations in the Northeast.  The quantity of quality fish living within its banks is unmatched in southern New England. The ever increasing number of Connecticut and out-of-state anglers lining its pools is a testament to that. There are many reasons why this river, particularly the upper portion, consistently produces high-caliber trout.  One of them is because of its year-round catch and release Trout Management Areas (TMA).

Established in 1988, the upper TMA encompasses a magnificent 3.6-mile stretch of river from the Route 219 Bridge in New Hartford to the power lines that run through People's State Forest in Pleasant Valley. With sufficient food, great habitat, cold, clean water, and fish-friendly regulations, there is a strong population of holdover trout, and an increasingly impressive number of wild fish as well.  For several years, there has been a growing movement to expand the TMA to improve and protect this amazing fishery even more. A proposed expansion in the works would increase the upper TMA upstream to the old bridge abutments in the tail of Whittemore Pool.  This would be a big win for trout by providing more catch and release sanctuary and for anglers by providing more room to breathe year-round. 

In addition, the proposed expansion would make the rest of the river from the Goodwin Dam all the way down to the Route 177 bridge a seasonal TMA.  This would mean that from September 1 until Opening Day, the entire 21-mile stretch of river from the Dam to Unionville would be a strictly catch and release area.  And from Opening Day until September 1, there would be a 2 fish, 12-inch limit in areas outside of the TMA.  However, in an attempt to make regulations more consistent throughout the entire stretch of river, the mandatory barbless hook regulation would be taken out if these changes go through in their current form. No doubt that by increasing the river's catch and release areas the trout fishing on the Farmington River would benefit immensely, yet reinstating barbed hooks into the TMA is looked at by many to be a step in the wrong direction.   

A public hearing has been scheduled for Wednesday, March 16 at 6:30 PM, at the DEP HQ in Hartford. This is the last chance to voice your opinion on the matter in person.  Based on public comment, the proposed regulations may be adjusted.  For supporters of expanding the TMA that cannot make it to Hartford, the Farmington River Anglers Association (FRAA) has drafted a letter (below), which you can tweak to make your own.  Written comments should be submitted no later than 4:30 PM on March 30 to Bill Foreman (see address/fax/email below).

Bill Foreman
CT DEP Inland Fisheries Division
79 Elm Street
Hartford, CT 06106-5127
Fax: (860) 424-4070
william.foreman@ct.gov

Dear Mr. Foreman:

I am writing this letter to show my support for the proposed changes in the Farmington River Trout Management Area. The expansion of the Trout Management Area to the bridge abutments at the tail out of the Whittemore pool, and the changes to the other areas of the river down to the Route 177 Bridge in Unionville are well thought out, and long over due.

However, there is one change in the proposed regulations which I DO NOT support. All three sections of the new proposals relating to the Farmington River require that the fish be released “without avoidable injury”. And yet the regulations requiring the use of barbless hooks has been eliminated from the proposal. Barbless hooks allow for reduced handling and a faster release of the fish, thus reducing unwanted injury. To eliminate this requirement makes no sense. Barbless hooks in the Trout Management Area have been required since its inception, and to remove this provision at this time would be counter productive to releasing the fish without avoidable injury. Please consider reinstating the barbless hook requirement in the TMA, and if you wish to standardize the regulations, make barbless hooks required for the entire section of the river in the proposal. Thank you for your consideration in this matter.

Sincerely,     


[Insert your name here]

Night Eyes

Wind wreaked havoc on ice fishing plans across the region this weekend.  Saturday and Sunday for the most part were unfishable. We had friends that tried and broke part of their pop-up shelter as a result.  Gusts to 40 MPH were common from Friday night into Sunday morning, and one town in northeastern Connecticut reported a gust of 61...no thanks! The wind finally died down Sunday afternoon just as we were settling in for a night of walleye fishing. A small snow event was due to move in around midnight, so we hoped for pre-storm action action as the barometer dropped. 

The bare ice made for some easy pulling and studded boots were needed to stay on your feet. We set up in a spot that has treated us well in the past and focused on depths ranging from 10 to 20-feet of water. Our live shiners and dead alewives were set just off bottom and we gave ourselves a bunch of extra holes throughout the spread for jigging. All was quiet until 9:10 PM when Aaron spotted the one and only blinking red light of the evening. It was Derrick's flag. The walleye had taken a decent amount of line out but then swam back towards the hole. Derrick patiently caught up to the fish until he felt something there and set the hook. Soon a respectable 22-inch-plus walleye came through the hole. 

The night was already a success by our standards and we still had a few more hours to kill before the first snow flakes fell. Next up was an ice feast that you dream about. Aaron cooked up a half dozen cheeseburger sliders, as well as pierogies and kielbasa, which we topped off with some good beers and swigs of espresso vodka.  Like clockwork, the wind reared its ugly head as the storm rolled in and we knew it was time to pack up. That was fine by us though.  Anytime you can get good friends together, eat like kings and land a keeper walleye is considered a solid outing in our book.

Stay tuned for next weekend's full report from our annual excursion to Maine...

Bait & Switch

We stepped foot on the lake as the first hints of dawn were creeping over the hills. And for the first time in over a month, dragging gear across the ice was easy. The right combination of mixed precipitation, thawing and refreezing had packed the snow well.  My power auger got its toughest workout of the season boring eight-inch holes through 30 inches of snow and ice. I punched holes in a tight circle and Jon cleared the mass amounts of slush. We then sat over 55 feet of water and got to work trying to catch our bait for the day.

Jon and Aaron had some live shiners as a backup plan, but the real meal tickets for trout in this lake are land-locked rainbow smelt. Smelting can either be a blast or flat-out frustrating. This trip started out as the latter. We had light-action jigging rods with spring-bobber extensions to aid in strike detection. Our small jigs and ice flies were tipped with fish meat and dropped down to the appropriate depth on the fish finder. Then we imparted little action and waited for the tiniest depressions of our rod tips to let us know that smelt 30-feet below were nibbling our offerings. 

On this particular morning they were not cooperating. We set some tip-ups with shiners anyway and waited for any type of bite to turn on. Confidence for flags flying was low without smelt on our traps, so we continued to try and crack the code. Around mid-morning, as if someone turned on a switch, we finally started getting them to eat, and one by one we switched out our shiners for fresh smelt. It did not take long before flags started to pop. 

Photo credit: Aaron Swanson

Both the smelt and trout action continued to pick up as the morning wore off.  Though not awfully big, these trout sport some awesome colors thanks to the cold, clean water and their healthy smelt diet. It keeps me coming back knowing what a real trophy out of there could look like. Unfortunately, we had to leave them biting, as all three of us were headed to the same obligation that afternoon. But before packing up, Jon capped off the outing with a nice 16-inch holdover brown on his first-ever smelt. It goes to show that having the right bait can sometimes be the difference between a skunk and a decent day. The leftovers didn't go to waste; I bagged them up individually and put them in the freezer when I got home, as dead smelt are better than no smelt.  

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.

 

When The Going Gets Tough

The National Weather Service recently announced that Connecticut's snowfall amount in January was higher than any other monthly total since record keeping began in 1905. That sucks for just about everybody except plow guys and ski bums. Dragging an ice fishing sled full of gear through all this snow is torture. If the slush beneath the snow layer cakes to the bottom of your sled, just forget about it. It's tough out there, but if you want to ice fish then you have to deal with it.    

Sloppy conditions or not, some friends and I were determined to get out last Saturday. We spent the early morning hours jigging up rainbow smelt in one of our favorite lakes. It wasn't on fire by any means, but we caught enough for a days-worth of trout bait. The cold, clean water here and healthy smelt diet always ensures good looking trout if you can find them. We kept the smelt fresh in a live-well and eventually set them on tip-ups and dead-sticks suspended under the ice. It didn't take long for some trout to key in on our baits. The first flag produced my only trout of the day, a beautiful 17-inch holdover brown. Aaron scored the next two fish, including a nice 16-inch brown. That was about it for action, but it was a blast to be on the ice again.

Bring enough shit?



Photo credit: Aaron Swanson

Photo credit: Aaron Swanson