Monday Monday 5-23-16

Monday, late morning I headed to the Farmington River to spend a few hours fishing and hopefully avoiding the crowds that will surely accompany the Memorial Day Weekend. With the weather predicted to be sunny and hot this weekend, the river will come alive with not only fishermen, but an assortment of tubes, kayaks and canoes.
As I  drove along the river my first choice of spots was occupied, so I continued upstream to my second choice and saw that my friend Dave was there. So I parked, got geared up and walked up to the area he was fishing. After exchanging the usual pleasantries and seeing that the fish were very active chasing caddis, began  nymphing using a pheasant tail and green caddis larva. Dave was drifting a green BH caddis larve and some type of soft hackle. We had constant action for a couple of hours, all on nymphs. All of the fish I landed were taken on the PT, which was my dropper. I also landed a very solid, broad shouldered brown and a few others using an olive Greeen WB.
As the sun hit more of the water the action slowed down and it was time for me to head home. A very successful day fishing with a good friend.

Dave has a good one here

Nellie, Dave's Springer watching the action

Nice Brown

Dave with a beauty

One Fly and Redemption

Last Saturday I joined Brk Trt ( Small Stream Reflections) along with a couple of other wild trout fly fishers in a two fly challenge on a small stream. While I hooked several brookies last week, I could not close the deal. I fished with a Partridge and Peacock soft hackle and the "Bomber".
Today I returned to the same stream armed with my go to pattern, Soft Hackle Pheasant Tail size 16. That was it, one fly. While approaching my first spot to fish, I came upon Billie the Great Blue Heron who was fishing also and frightened him off. Needless to say I did not fish that location. As I moved upstream where we had observed two fish rising last week, I found Bucky Beaver doing the back stroke, so I did not fish that location either. Farther upstream I came to a nice riffle along the path. I swung the soft hackle through this area and promptly had my first wild brook trout of the day.
Fished a few other location to no avail. Moved up to a nice run I have always had success in and on the first cast hooked and lost one, cast again and brought another nice brookie to hand. Fished a few other locations and found no more takers. The stream has dropped quite a bit since last week.
I returned to my car and moved down stream to another section and in a nice deep run took a gorgeous colored brook trout. Got him on the third attempt as he swung and missed the first two times.
Moved a short distance down stream and in a fast run a nice solid fish nailed the PT and put a bend in the rod.
So... one fly and Redemption!

first one of the day!

one for two here

Took this beauty in the pool (pic) below

Last Beauty of the day

last fish took the PT in this fast riffle.

Rainy Days and Wild Browns

Today dawned cloudy, damp and rainy. Plans were made to fish a wild trout stream with Mark from Fishing Small Streams. It was pouring rain when we arrived and Mark asked "Do we really want to do this"?  We agreed to tough it out and soon Mark was into a couple of fish. The rain abated and we moved upriver to another location. I finally got on board with two wild browns.

The first wild brown of the day

Another beauty

These two wild browns made my day complete. I had a few other hook ups that resulted in LDR s.  So in answer to Mark's original question "Do we really want to do this"? The answer is YES. We each had a few wild trout brought to hand, so in spite of the rain we had a successful day!





Wild Ones & Personal Best-Twice

I decided to seek out some wild browns today, fishing late morning and early afternoon. I thought that the recent rains, the cloudy, overcast day would be to my benefit. Man was I surprised.
Late morning I am walking along the bank I observe a rise under a tree. I roll cast my Soft Hackle PT above the rise, let it swing down and on the first twitch the water boiled and I was into a gorgeous wild brown, which totally exceeded my expectations, as this one was the largest wild brown I have caught in this stream. Measured out at ten inches. I continued fishing upstream and found a few more assorted wild browns willing to play.
After lunch I fished another section, a long. deep pool and spotted a rise at the end of said pool. Fishing the same SHPT, drifted over the fish and was into my second personal best wild brown in this stream. Continued fishing this pool and landed two more smaller cousins to the larger brown.
The last fish of the day was in another section, photos below, where one the prettiest of the day fell for the SHPT. And as I always try to do ended the day on a positive note. Enjoy the photos below. These are some of the most beautiful wild browns in the state. The first and third are my two best wild browns.

My first personal best of the day

Second personal best of the day