the Mayfly Hatch is on

Quality over quantitiy

Not just fish.
Movies too.
Youtube makes for some interesting realities.
"everybody" has a channel.
But that doesn't mean that only the most watched are teh best.
Some extraordinary stuff is small.
Like these guys.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffHyDdl-Dok
Maybe they'll get big.
But right now they are simply super to watch, even without the crowds.

Atlantic Salmon in the Canadian Maritimes

See link to study:

http://waves-vagues.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/Library/348496.pdf

Blissful Saturday & Sunday

       On Saturday I went out for a couple hours in the afternoon. I started out in a very small pond where we skate in the winter. The recent "nor'easter" took down a lot of trees--which means the skating is going to be affected next year unless we get it out of There. In the meantime it made a nice casting platform. I didn't catch anything, but I do wonder If the beaver's work had anything to do with the tree toppling!

There was an active hatch going on--midge or perhaps a type of stonefly. There were surface flutterers and skimmers and the phoebes were very active. They are a favourite of mine. With no fish caught after a solid hour in that pond (but I'm sure they are there--I saw a few subtle fin wakes) I moved onto the favoured local stream, but in the TMA portion, the plunging pocket water part of it.

I lost $5 worth of purchased flies. One a green wooly bugger by Sam Boisvert. Another was a beadhead larva I picked up on a trip to the Farmington. So then I went to my own flies and of course that worked:

The recently stocked char was in a spot that I expected would have a fish, and while wading upstream towards it I saw a swirl. I had no luck until I came back down to it from a pool upstream after 20 minutes there.
https://youtu.be/papJ4XOYo9U

While catching the char, I was on top of a rock where the steep side occluded my view of the trout--and vice versa. I started by drifting the wooly bugger on the current out of sight. With no takes I cast downstream and twitched it as I retrieved it upstream, imagining a crayfish darting against the current. The first cast I caught it--but my finger was off the line and the fish was "spooling" my Hardy reel. I lost it and had to cast again. No problem, it took it again and I had it!

******************

Today (Sunday) I went back there. Of course at first I played for 10 minutes in that same place perched on the rock, knowing I was unlikely to be successful. Now the interesting thing is that as I started to walk up to the next pool, I watched an Osprey drop out of the trees directly onto the pool! No fish for him as he emerged out of the foam, but it proved what I had concluded yesterday: that pool should hold fish.

I then went upstream trying plunges and miniature waterfalls and eddies with foam. There were no takers until I got to a sort of perfect little beach with a promising pool across and down, and a perfect small riffle upstream with a seam leading out. Sure enough, after working the downstream pool, I focused more upstream and in less than 10 casts I had a gorgeous small holdover rainbow.

The really fun part is that I tied a new fly just before heading out--and this is the one that did the trick!

I was as content as I could possibly be. I'd been fishing a perfect small stream, nice burbling clear clean water, phoebes in the trees, and promising riffles with the chance of a trout. I felt like I did fishing with my father in that perfect stream in the Poconos. That this is 2 miles from my house is almost too good to be true. But it is true, which is extraordinary. Until 2016 I had lived in this town for almost 10 years. I had ridden my bike up the road that criss-crosses the stream and thought about what an idyllic scene it was, that I should cast to the riffle there. I had spent my time playing with the children--sailing mostly, or riding, skating on the pond, careening down wooded hills on skinny skis, or going to hockey games or concerts.Yes, I had intended all along to inculcate them in the ways of the trout. I had taken them to Chatfield and Rogers a few times when they were probably too young. But I live a busy life. I live a life of repeated recurring serial obsessions: ice hockey, sailing, skiing, rowing, fishing. There is so much to do when you live on the coast of Connecticut, if you do not squander it.

So what about the melancholy of realizing how many years I thought about doing this on this very stream, but did not--that feeling, what do I do about it?  I go fishing and all is well again.

The Osprey Found the Pool

Went for a brief fish this afternoon again!

Started out in the upper pool this time, casting around this downed tree (this is looking downriver):

And casting across into and beyond the seam and up into the riffle:

I started out on my weird fly, on the 3 weight:









I worked the whole water, starting in close, then I put one splitshot and repeated, worked everywhere, then finally added a 1/16th oz shot and yet again. Not even a nibble.

So I did the same thing on my green wooly bugger with the yellow tinsel. Got nothing. See last entry for a brown trout caught on this fly.

Finally, I put on my weird jig version of this fly. Remember that yesterday I caught and lost a fish on this in this same pool, on the first cast.

It took me a few more minutes to hook up, This one came out of the end of the riffle. Same spot that I hooked up yesterday on the same jig!









Here's a movie of the action:

I then tried the downriver pool, starting out casting sneaky under the bridge. I saw one brook trout in there. Nobody wanted to come out. And I got nothing and saw no rises around the tree either.

There was a big stonefly hatch going on:



But perhaps the biggest news was the osprey. I wonder if his obvious presence had put the fish down. At one point he dove off that tree headfirst into the water!

Three Trout in a Pleasant Lunch Break

A brief fishing break is always nice. When the pool is 1 mile away.

These first two fish came out from around the downed tree, on the downstream side. There have been a lot of fish schooling around that trunk ever since they were stocked.

 

Here's the tree:

 

This last one was caught in the tail of the riffle upstream of the downed tree. As you can see, I switched to a spinner to get this one. I caught another that I lost before I could net it--but on the jig I tied--see below.

Here's the riffle:

The stoneflies have been hatching.

Here is the jig compared to the fly it was based on. It all started with the fully palmered variation of the bibio that I tied late last fall.

14 Trout in One Short Afternoon?

Yesterday I broke a record. I caught 14 stockers in one afternoon, all in the same stretch. They were stocked 3 days ago--Friday (I caught on Sunday). The browns far preferred spinners. The brook trout only took flies. Browns did, too, but the brook trout were surfacing on occasion (I thought they were brook only on the surface--but today I was proven wrong). The browns were seemingly lurking deep. One of the two browns I got on a fly was a small one that was literally a foot from the bank.

 You can see the "statistics" in that rudimentary table above.

I started out with the spinner to see what I could find. And got a rainbow and two browns. That happened very fast. So then I went and worked my fly rod with the green wooly bugger (it became damaged later). That and the brown wooly bugger did theit trick so I was 3 and 3.

Moving up the river 50 yards, I was having no luck with my fly rod. I fished the weird looking green/red one at right, as well as a large minnow streamer (the ones that I have shown in previous posts). Not even a touch. There was fast water, a seam each side, and pools. Lots of ways to find fish. Once I switched over to that yellow/black spinner, the fish became evident immediately. There were a lot of hits and grabs before I hooked into one. Having debarbed that one was a good idea. It came right out. Sure enough, the lure worked too.

After that pool was "tired" I went back downriver again and switched back to my fly rod. And immediately roll-cast to a rise and brought a brook char to hand. But the tide was rising and I wanted to get out to the rest of the water. And I was curious about my crazy fly, so I put three large splitshot abotu 6" above it on an ultralight spinning setup and hucked it out there. I lost count of the number of hits, takes, and misses (lost grabs). It finally brought another brook trout in. I should have kept with it, but was impatient to see if something else would work. And that turned out to be the green wooly bugger, again, but this time on the spinning rig. That was #13. It was right after #12 that I slipped and went in. Overtopped both hip boot, got my right arm in the water, and my wallet wet. I caught #13 on that wooly bugger while walking out of the water! 

I couldn't stop at 13 though. I emptied my boots, put them back on and got back to it but on yet another fly--again on the spinning rig. That little tiny orange number. It worked too. And with the air now at 38 it was time to get out of the cold!

Today I went back at lunch under a bright sun. Sure enough, I found a number of fish lurking in the shadows under the bridge.  Because of the success of that whacky green/red fly on the right, I tied a jig with the same pattern (albeit without the crazy wing, and with a deceiver tail made of genetic hackle).  It drew multiple fish out of the shadows.  I could see them following. At one point I saw 4 of them tailing it!  But they would not mouth it.


So then out of curiosity, I tied on one of those "Creme" spinner things with the little shad on one side and the blade on the other leg. First cast, same spot, watched a fish tail it, then mouth it--and I hooked up a brook char:




Then I saw some rises developing in the same places as yesterday. I put my jig back on. No luck. Nothing. Not a touch. Put that creme thing back on. 2 casts in I had two followers--all the way to within feet of me!  While they didn't spook, they definitely saw me, because they got to a point and stopped coming, turned into the current, hovered, then swam back.  Next cast I got another follow.  These however were browns. 

All in all it is fascinating to play with making flies and lures, and seeing the behavior--even though they are stocked trout and different from wilds and even holdovers.