A Couple of Things

Over the past few days I fished a local stream and found some nice wild browns. The one pictured below was the catch of the day, about 9 inches long.

Visited the Farmington River LTMA with a friend who is learning to Euro Nymph and we got into some very nice rainbows in a couple of different locations.

Earth Day 2016

Yesterday was Earth Day and I spent some time in the afternoon along a local stream swinging soft hackles.
I found a long, quiet, stretch of river and as I approached saw some of the trout sipping something just beneath the surface. I started out drifting a size 16 SHPT and actually missed the first three fish, as they took the fly on the drift just below the surface, I saw the leader twitch and was a bit late setting the hook. It did not take me very long to get dialed in and for the next 90 minutes or so, had a ball catching and releasing numerous cookie cutter rainbows all in the 10-11 inch class. Closed out the day with a nice brookie.
The fish cooperated and took that SHPT on the drift, swing and at times on the retrieve.

Euro Nymphing 101

I fished the LTMA of the Farmington River today with a friend of mine who was just getting into Euro Nymping, in fact today was his first time. We went to a spot that has always been a good producer for me arriving late morning. We got geared up, rigged the rods and we were ready. Fred was using a jigged PT and a pink squirrel as the dropper.. After several minutes of stream side instruction, he was ready to go and soon landed his first trout on a fly. We had plenty of hook ups and action for a couple of hours with numerous rainbows to hand and a few browns mixed in. Plenty of LLR too. Fred took the prize of the day a gorgeous, fat, chunky holdover brown with all fins intact that gave him a run for his money. Now he is hooked!!
We both had a very enjoyable day on the river. I took all of my fish on a large streamer, which provided a lot of action.

OPENING DAY 2016

Today dawned cold and clear, so I waited until later morning before my son Matt and I started for the Farmington River. Arriving late morning proved to be a wise choice. We had our first stop to ourselves, another reason to get a later start. Matt was Euro nymphing and got on the board first with a nice fat brown and I followed shortly thereafter with a couple of nice Bows on streamers. We both continued to catch and release quite a few nice rainbows with a few chunky, well fed browns thrown into the mix. We had plenty of action for a couple of hours.
Below are a couple of photos. Matt playing a nice rainbow and finally in the net. A very successful opening day!!!

The Black Ghost

I fished a local TMA this afternoon, using my 4 weight Trout Bum and the Black Ghost Streamer. I have used this streamer for more years than I care to remember right now. It was always one of my go to streamers in the early season to locate trout.
Today it proved itself again as I brought numerous trout to hand  and scored a hat trick. Most were the standard cookie cutter sized browns, brookies and rainbows and on the 2 1/2 oz. four weight a blast to play.

Happy Easter

A quick trip to the Farmington River resulted in these two holdovers, a nice colored brown and rainbow.

                                         

Wild Browns and Pheasant Tails

On Tuesday arrangements were made to meet Brk Trt and RKM in the the late morning at one of Connecticut's Class 1 WTMA's . When I arrived Allen and Kirk were somewhere upstream and I decided to fish a very deep pool before moving up river in search of them. I was using a size 16 BHPT Soft Hackle and cast it into the head of this long pool. As I picked up the slack, the ling tightened and I was into a very large, solid wild brown. I landed the brown and as I struggled to get a nice photo I accidently hit the on off and button, shutting the camera off and the fish made good his escape. But a beauty for sure and one of the largest wild browns I have caught in this stream.

I walked upstream a bit and found Allen and Kirk, and they had done well taking a few wild browns.
We moved downstream to a section of the stream I had not fished before and under the tutelage of Brk Trt I managed to bring a few more wild browns to hand.