Farmington River

I recently took trip to Connecticut's famed Farmington River with a group of friends.  We headed up to the river on the tail end of a nor'easter, so we had some adverse weather and water conditions to deal with.  Despite less than ideal conditions it turned out to be a great trip.

There were plenty of chunky little rainbows to be had.  They were everywhere and eagerly took our nymphs and streamers in the morning and rose to Hendricksons and caddis in the warmer afternoons.  The rainbows averaged 12 to 14 inches with the largest nosing up to about 16 inches.  They fought surprising hard for their size.

 The brown trout averaged a inch or two less and were just as abundant.   I managed to hook a few larger browns in the 20" class, while fishing streamers in some of the deep runs and pools, but they got the best of me and never made it to the net.

The fishery folks on the Farmington have an interesting way of tagging fish to identify when they were stocked.  The small recently stocked brown trout all had this green laser etch behind their right eye.  I have never seen this method of tagging before.

We managed to have one phenomenal afternoon when my buddy Rick and I got into a riffle that was just teeming with fish.  There were actually more fish in this one spot than I have ever encountered on a river before.  We discovered that they were staged in that riffle taking emerging Hendricksons.  Fishing soft hackles we took fish on almost every casts for hours right up until dark.  The numbers of fish caught was astounding, between the two of us it was one of those rare "100 fish days".

Fishing two fly rigs and catching two fish at a time was just as common as catching one!  More often than not, everyones rod was bent over at the same time.  Since we left fish biting the night before, we returned the next morning morning with another friend and found the fish there again.  This time they appeared to be taking spent little yellow crane flies.  A partridge and yellow soft hackle did the trick and we did it all over again.   This had been my first trip to the Farmington, I can't wait to head back!

"Winter" Fishing Wrap Up

This blog has been far too quiet lately.  My apologies to my regular readers.  Fortunately I have been busy fishing as well as working.  I thought I would share some images from some of my winter trips to the river.  We were blessed with a extremely mild winter this year.  I was able to fish in shirt sleeves or a light jacket for most of the days between December and the present.  Today we have seasonable temperatures in the mid fifties and it feels down right chilly!

The fishing this winter was phenomenal!   Although we experienced extremely high water during the spring, summer and fall, the lack of snow/rain this winter has really brought water levels down,  The low crystal clear water we typical experience in autumn has been with us all winter.  This mild weather has the bugs all confused as well.  Many hatches are several weeks early.  As it looks now we may miss our Hendrickson hatch completely as we suffer through three weeks of closed waters.

I had several months some of the best dry fly fishing I have ever experienced in New Jersey with loads of fish coming to the surface chasing our little black stoneflies.  This hatch has always been hit or miss because of weather and water conditions, but this year we had two solid months of consistent action on stoneflies.

There has been plenty of BIG fish as well.  My best this winter was a twenty six inch brown.  Unfortunately his picture will not be found on this blog because I was without a camera (my friends know that is a regular problem with me), but there are plenty of 22"-24" pictured on this post to make up for it.

Many of these big fish were taken on top but the largest were often taken dredging a nymph on a dark cloudy day.  This spring our rivers were chock full of suckers getting their spawn on.  Unlike some anglers, I have no aversion to matching that particular hatch so I am no stranger to sucker spawn patterns.  If its good enough for a fish to eat, its good enough for me to tie and fish!

When going down low effective patterns were my Yellow Stonefly Nymph, Cased Caddis, Chimarra Caddis and my trusty Pheasant Tail Anchor.  As far as dry flies went your basic black stone fly imitations produced well, the fish were not too picky.  But the biggest fish always seemed to rise to My buddy Lou's CDC Stone.  Water temps were high enough to get some great action on aggressively stripped streamers as well.

The last few days of the open season were the best.  Daytime temps in the seventies brought the water up into the mid fifties.  With temps like that the caddis and mayflies started popping.  I spent the last day of the open season fishing wet flies to very aggressive fish willing to chase down and absolutely smash the fly.  At the end of the day at dark I was treated to a caddis hatch and took several fish on Iris Caddis fished with movement in the film.






















So my apologies again for the lack of posting but a man has to have his priorities.  Fishing will trump writing every time in my book!  I promise things will get back on track and you will hear a lot more from the Jersey Angler in the months to come.

Tight Lines!

Grayling In the lower 48

Grayling are a species of fish that have always intrigued me.  Usually associated with the far north and Europe, they are an exotic fish for a fellow that hails from New Jersey.  On our recent trip to Yellowstone Country we had an opportunity to fish for grayling in the park.

Grebe Lake has a healthy population of both grayling and rainbow trout.  The lake is an easy 3 mile walk from the road, the trail is as about as flat as they come for that part of the world.  Roughly three quarters of the shoreline is fishable, the rest of it is a tangle of deadfall from the big fire.  The lake once served as a hatchery for the park in the early days but any traces of that operation are long gone.  If you make the trek you will be rewarded with fine fishing in a wilderness setting. There are a couple of primitive campsites on the lake as well, if a overnight stay interests you, The walk is easy enough to consider packing in a float tube. Just be sure to check with the park on regulations concerning camping and watercraft.

My trips to this water usually occur in mid July and on every trip I have been blessed with blizzard like damsel fly hatches.  This year was no exception.  As a bonus, the fish showed no preference between the nymph or the adult fly.  Top water or down low, it was all up to the fisherman to decide!  Last trip out the adult damsels were a subtle olive color and this year they were a brilliant blue.

For nymphs a basic olive damsel pattern would work as good as anything else.

The highlight of the day however, is when we switched over to tenkara gear to take these fish.  Fishing with a tenkara rod proved much more effective and a hell of a lot more fun on these chunky, little fish.

Even a ten inch grayling would give you a run for your money, as the bend in my buddy Rick's rod clearly demonstrates.  Grebe Lake is a place I find myself coming back to year after year.  Its not a place your going to catch a wall hanger, but you will certainly experience quality fishing!

Winter is Finally Over!

This was a long tough winter for me.  In a normal winter I will usually get a dozen or more trips under my belt before the season closes before opening day in early April.  This year it was looking like opening day would be my first time on the water.  As luck would have it last Friday my scheduled cleared at the last minute and I was on the water by noon.  The weather was unseasonable warm but the water was high, just coming down from flood stage earlier in the week.  Not perfect conditions, but with the season closing in two days there really wasn't another choice.

The day started a little slow but as the water warmed the fish turned on.  It was a Czech nymphing game as the high water had the fish pushed to the banks and in the softer water around the breaks, but the fish were there and they were eating.  The high roiled water allowed you to fish close most times not even getting your feet wet.

The fish were in great shape and looked like they passed through the winter in grand style.

Most of the fish were rainbows, but as the water warmed the browns started to wake up.

This is a new pattern this year and it produced very good.  I'll put up the pattern recipe in a few days.

The fish of the day was a big hen brown who ate the fly right on the bank in front of a log. 

With any luck there would be one more trip out before the season closed Sunday night...

Getting Fat...

The fish are busy putting on their winter fat.  Our fish are in great shape this fall.  The ones that made it through the hot dry summer still managed to put on some weight.  Now that things have cooled off a bit they are eating machines, bulking up for the leaner times of winter.

The End of the Rainbow

End of the Rainbow

This simple pattern has proven deadly of rainbow trout.  After years of this fishing this pattern it has caught nothing but rainbow trout.  No browns, no brookies only rainbows and quite a few at that.

Pattern:

Hook: Standard Nymph size 12-16

Bead: Tungsten

Thread: Grey 6/0 uni

Body:  Tapered body of gray uni-stretch, gray floss or gray thread

Rib: Small gold wire

Thorax:  UV pink ice-dub

Bigger Fish...More Leaves

I headed out to the river expecting the worse.  Bright sun and a river ladened with leaves.  When I first arrived, things didn't look so bad, some leaves but definitely fishable.  Then the wind picked up...leaves started tumbling from the sky by the bushel.  In no time at all the river was once again leaf soup.

Soup's On

This time there would be no messing with streamers or wet flies.  It was time to get underneath this mess. Nymphing, though still difficult with all the stream borne debris, produced some bigger fish than the previous trip.  No monsters but definitely better fish.  Effective patterns were the Pheasant Tail Anchor and the End of the Rainbow (I'll describe it in a future post).

Leaves were not the only things in the water

My buddy Lou of the Fly and Fin got top honors of the day with this fat male rainbow.  This fish was taken on a caddis larva out of a foot of water.

Phat!!!