I like guiding Brad because he is a good fly fisher and his personality makes for good company. Today seemed early on that we may have chosen a day that would be a bit substandard as far as conditions go. The high 70 degree day of Saturday would be replaced with a high of 55 degrees with a bitter northwest wind howling all day along the Ware River Valley. It was a struggle to keep my hat on!!
Some observations:
First, We saw NO OTHER FLYFISHERS over the three locations that we fished, Church Street, River Run Road and behind the big abandoned mill in Gillbertsvile. I saw some at Church Street Saturday on a drive bye but nothing today.
Second, we caught trout at each location with soft hackles and then with weighted stuff and then soft hackles again. We missed a bunch!!!!!!! Most were caught on the classic drift and swing which will always give your heart a bounce at that "take". We even took a good size smallie (12 inch range) who didn't want to be caught!!
Then the WEIRDNESS
We were about a 100 yards down from the Church Street Bridge where it becomes shallow for a short span. We saw the SHOULDERS of a large fish that began to leave a WAKE as it moved through this shallow area. It disappeared but then reappeared against the right hand bank. What was it? A monster brown? (hmm... can't be), a large bass (too large for this river?), a large carp coming upstream from the Park area? Who knows but a few minutes later Brad hooked a 5 inch fall fish( first on the Ware this season). When the fall fish got to about 10 feet from us something BIG grabbed it. The instinctive hook set pulled the little guy from the jaws of this mystery fish only to have the mystery attack again!! We saw a 10 second battle before the monster finally let go. What did I see? I saw a fish that was easily a fist size wide across the shoulders. If it was a bass it was 4 to 5 pounds. If it wasn't a bass then God knows what.
Someone said that there are no brookies on the EB this year. It's way premature for that statement!! The DFW will stock this river THIS WEEK before the big TU party this weekend as they do every year. If this year is like last year they will stock many brookies in this river. Hopefully it won't be like last year when too many brookies (my opinion) went in.
So there you go. Three locations reported on the Ware. The Swift is slow as everyone knows except for our native brookies and more reports coming through on this blog. Kind of better than reporting on good days on rivers that remain nameless. Am I right or am I right????
More to Come!
Ken
9 comments:
Great story, Ken, on the huge mystery fish. My bet is that it's a big brown and that you will net him at some point being you know where he lives. I look forward to that story when that happens.
Along those lines, I was hooking into some small brook trout recently on the lower Swift, and several times a big trout would follow the brookies in. I am convinced that if I let those brookies dangle in the current a while that big one would have tried to eat one.
I tied on a good sized streamer to imitate the small brookies, but no interest from that big one until I was reeling in the fly to tie something else on, and about half way back to me the trout hit it with a big splash, but to my surprise did not hook up.
One of the best things about fly fishing, or fishing in general, is that most days there is something interesting happening.
Best Regards, Sam
I presume the fall fish was a total loss?
Ken,
I had another excellent afternoon on my home water, the Quinapoxet River. The rainbow below measured out at 18 1/2 inches, a very large fish for the Quinapoxet. I caught him on a size 14 March Brown nymph. I knew immediately I was into a good fish as he ran from one side to the other and bull dogged around rocks in river before going airborne a couple of times. Glad I had the 5X tippet on.
The second fish is either a wild brown or a salmon parr. The tail was forked so I'm thinking it was a salmon parr though I wasn't aware of any salmon fry stocking in the Quinapoxet. A few Black Caddis & March Brown's were hatching. I missed a couple of other takes.
The river is in good shape with run-off still refreshing the river but with safer wading conditions than 2 weeks ago.
Gary
Ontherocks,
That fall fish had tooth marks from it's head to it's tail. It's probably turtle food right now.
Sam,
It's been fairly common over the last few years to have rainbows grab small brookies below route 9. I guess the bows are attracted by the frantic moves of a brookie on the line. Try stripping the line in quickly to imitate that.
Gary,
The forked tail eliminates the brown trout theory. The only salmonidae found in Wachusett/Quinnie are LL salmon and lake trout. Nothing gets past that dam but maybe the DWF threw some parr up there that nobody knows about!
Ken
Saw what appeared to be massive trout swimming at fife brook yesterday only to look down stream no more than 30 seconds later and see a beaver, what a buzzkill. Even though it was windy as hell still got to fool some with caddis on top.
Lenny
Lenny,
This thing was going too fast for a beaver which is why I thought it may have been an otter. The last time it showed itself we could tell it was a fish!
Yes, the wind was tough on Sunday and worse yesterday.
Ken
Hi Guys,
I fished the Quinnepoxet last Friday hoping we might be getting into some may fly hatches but the insect activity was fairly low (possibly the wind?). I hiked up under RT 190 and noticed the left bank (facing upstream) had a "Danger Arsenic" sign anyone know the history of that? Needless to say I hooked two subsurface but both got away.
Mike
Hi Ken,
Love your blog, keeps me wanting to go back to fish the Westfield as often as I can. Fished the MB last Friday and had good success with some fiesty Rainbows. Have you ever had good success on the EB below Indian Hollow?
Best,
Chris
Chris C.
I've fished below the Hollow in the past but not when I would like to fish it (evening). I've done well there none the less.
Mike C.
"Arsenic"?? I believe there's an old landfill up there. Maybe someone knows more about that. The local TU Chapter may be a start or maybe there will be a "comment" on it.
Ken
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