Late Season on the Millers-Fall on the Swift

Well, things are beginning to wind down. The great surface action of the past month and a half is becoming a memory. On the October 24 I got an hour in at Rezendes in the Bears Den. I was looking for rising trout but that hour before sundown failed me. Rollcast forward to Saturday the 27th. The forecast of heavy rain was dead on as I drove down to the Swift and the "pipe" section which is a favorite of mine. I met one other angler that morning who agreed that the rain would keep others off the river. "Yesterday I couldn't find a place to park because of the crowd" was his lament. We didn't lament for long. I caught 8 rainbows and he had about as many. A size #16 grouse and flash took half with the rest coming on a #16 dark olive beadhead. The new Orvis rain jacket worked as advertised. I was there for just less than three hours and wanted to spend the rest of the day there but obligations made me reel up and head for home. October 31 - One hour at the Kempfield in the very late afternoon. After seeing only one trout rise I put on a #8 marabou muddler and fished the rocks above the slow water. Bang! One 14 inch brown. Bang again and a parted tippet. Time to tie up some marabou muddlers and try this area again in November.

The Millers will begin to rise with the Autumn rains and the draw down from Tully Lake. It usually means an end to the great dry fly action that this river gives us in the Fall. Maybe it will be a bit late this year (hopefully). There's always the Swift to keep the diehards like me occupied till Spring.

The top left photo is of a rainbow from the Swift from last Saturday. The other is of "the pipe" with nobody there. I told you it was raining hard!!!

MRF

Kempfield Pool Again - October 17

Maybe it was too much to expect another banner day like I had two days before. Friends of mine from eastern Ma. spent Tuesday, the 16th, on the Wendell C&R and had limited success. Some BWO's but very little surface action. I made it down to the Kempfield for two hours before our monthly TU meeting the next day and caught the two rising browns that presented themselves but it was an interesting evening anyway. It was interesting because of what some flyfishers see and what some don't see.

When I arrived there was an elderly grey haired gent who was casting and retrieving a fly in the wide slow portion of this Kempfield stretch. What I noticed was what this gent didn't notice - the delicate rise of a brown near the rocks along the south bank. This guy never even tried for this fish!! After a while this guy left for home and I took up his spot. It was then that I noticed that there were two fish in this area that would rise, gently, every few minutes or so. Well, I put the #20 BWO emerger to work. The casts had to be long and right on the spot due to the rocks that guarded the spot. I took both of those trout, both browns, with that tiny fly. There is a lesson here. Some tactics work and some don't. If you are dragging a sunken fly with no success and there is a surface feeding brown within casting range then you go for it with the appropriate fly! It is hard for me to believe that this guy DIDN'T see these fish. All I can say is that he didn't see the sporatic rises otherwise he would have been on to them. The lesson - keep a clear eye and be aware of everything that is happening around you. Beadheads and buggers will fool the foolish rainbows of spring and early summer. By now the 'bows are long gone and the browns demand real skill and patience.

MRF

Catskill Weekend - Millers Monday

I received a great birthday gift this past weekend in the form of a long weekend, courtesy of my girlfriend, at an inn on the banks of the fabled Willowemoc in Lingingston Manor up in the Catskills. It is hard to believe but I've never been there so I took three days to scout out the "Willow" and the legendary Beaverkill. I visited and took photos of those storied pools on the Beaverkill - the Junction Pool, Ferdon's, Hendrickson's, Cairns, Horse Run (awesome stretch), the Wagon Tracks and Painters Bend. I'll be back, hopefully next June, to fly fish this beautiful region especially the Willowemoc. It is such a beautiful stream!! Oh yeah, I managed to actually fish for an hour. No runs, no hits, no errors. The above photo is a stretch of the Willowemoc upstream from Livingston Manor.

Now, for a real report!! I managed to find myself on the Kempfield this late afternoon. I expected the same nymphing trout that have been driving us crazy of late and I wasn't disappointed. This time I was armed with plenty of BWO emergers in #18 and #20. I tied them a bit differently using only olive or brown thread for the body and then a dark olive thorax finnished with a poly wing post. As it happened I was greeted with a good BWO hatch. All told I took 11 browns. It was just a great autumn afternoon.

MRF

An October Saturday on the Millers

Yup, back at the Kempfield except this time there are two other fly fishers working the water above the big flat pool. There are many browns nymphing the stretch above Whetestone Brook. Another regular is pounding the deep slow water below but to no avail. It's a replay of the last trip where the browns are showing nothing but dorsals and tails. From 3:30 to 6:30 I take two, about 16 inches on a very light olive emerger size 18 and miss about three others. I can't believe I'm using 7x!!! Two of the anglers leave without any luck. Another fly fisher catches one on a tiny emerger but as darkness falls I give my spot and a big brown I've been casting at to him. He lands it on, can you believe this, a #14 Usual!! The brown is a full 17 inches and full of autumn color. It's a perfect evening with VERY difficult fish. One moment is worth mentioning. The last guy that I mentioned and myself saw a monster brown rise and then begin to tear up the stretch we were fishing. It had to be a 20 inch fish and very aggressive.

MRF

October Evening At The Kempfield Pool

Ok, Wednesday evening, October 3rd around 4:45pm. I get down to the Kempfield (lower C&R) and find my friend Herb already casting to rising browns or should I say browns with only dorsals and tails breaking the surface. Sylvio, another Millers regular, joins the ranks positioning himself at the exposed rocks at the head of the big pool. There's some "talent" here but we are no match for these selective browns. Drys don't work. Herb, with a #16 pheasant tail, takes a heafty brown after many casts. I take a 16 inch brown on a #16 olive emerger. Trout are breaking the surface everywhere above the mouth of Whetestone Brook but every presentation is refused. I miss one, then another. Herb and Sylvio call it a night. I finally land another brown on an emerger but because the fly is in the back corner of it's mouth I feel that it probably got hooked while going after something else. This may be the hardest evening of flyfishing on this river that I've experienced in years. Sporatic light mayflies would show themselves but no real visible hatch, just browns nymphing after something unseen. IT WAS GREAT!!!!!!!!!!! As I've learned in over twenty years of flyfishing this river - the Fall is the best time for rising, selective browns.

The above photo shows the section of the Kempfield Pool that we were fishing. It's an early season (June) photo. Conditions where more like the conditions in the photo of that goofy looking character at the head of this blog.

Fish this section anytime from mid afternoon to dusk at this time of year. It will test your skills and give you memories that will last you through the long winter which is just around the corner.

MRF