Fly Fishing Information On The Millers, Swift, Middle, West and East Branches Of the Westfield River and the Ware, and Mill rivers. YOUR BEST SOURCE FOR MA. FLY FISHING INFORMATION, the top ranked fly fishing blog in Massachusetts! WHAT FLY FISHERS READ!!
"There is no greater fan of fly fishing than the worm" - Patrick McManus
Around Boston they like to say that the first day of Spring is the day when the Red Sox equipment truck leaves for Fort Meyers. Not so!!! For the fly fishers it's when the first tiny dark stoneflies make their appearance. The photos were taken yesterday, February 27, at my home on the Mill River. (I think that the two 70 degree days last week may have spawned a few). They were about a size 18 and how they got out of that raging torrent (700 cfs) is one of natures mysteries.
Are they worth fishing over? Probably not, due to the conditions of early Spring with it's flooded streams and for the most part, lack of fish. And this little guy's life span will be mostly over by the time the stocking trucks roll. But it is good to see them because it means we have turned the corner in our race to Spring.
Evening Sun Presentation
Just a note that I'll be at the Evening Sun Fly Shop this Sunday at noon to talk about the Millers and the branches of the Westfield. See you there!
Dry Fly Question
Does anyone "anticipate" the dry fly season any longer? Do you have boxes of freshly tied Hendricksons and Sulphurs ready to go into battle or are you mostly a subsurface fly fisher?
" Most of my guiding clients have one request besides catching trout - "I don't like crowds" is the constant theme and crowds can be avoided even on the Swift. We just avoid the Y Pool and the Pipe unless we are the only ones there which is rare. Being crowd free is easy on the Millers, Ware and the three branches of the Westfield." Ken
My friend Lenny has spent the winter spey casting along the Deerfield with good results I would suspect. "I haven't fished a nymph in months, just streamers". That got me thinking. I plan to spend a little time in Florida in March and I am low on big briny streamers. It's also going to give me a chance to tie a unique style of streamer - the Hud's Bushwacker style!
Check out the photo and take a good look at the hook. No traditional streamer hook here but a PLASTIC WORM HOOK (the worm is plastic, not the hook) in a 2/0 size. The fly is basically all wing and no body and the wing actually forms a weed guard for the hook.
The question is will one be able to get this hook in a trout size, say a size 4? The bushwacker tying style certainly has its benefits over the traditional style - more material movement and the ability to create the slim body profile that many bait fish have.
I think that 2/0 might tempt one of those Swift River browns!!!!
I also needed to stock up on some old reliables and one is the simple Emerging Caddis. First used at the junction of the Cold River and the Deerfield 30 years ago this fly just gets it done.
Hook - size 14-16 standard wet or dry
Body - grey dubbing of either rabbit or synthetic
Wing - sparse grey partridge
Head - black ostrich
Fish this critter near the surface especially in the riffles
"A fine, handmade bamboo rod is not only pretty to look at and a joy to cast, but in the world as it is, it's a victory of the handcrafted over the manufactured; the cottage industry over the corporate death star. The best bamboo rods may or may not equal the chilly efficiency of the best graphites, but even if they don't, their amiable gracefulness more than makes up for it". John Gierach
We are gaining 3 minutes of daylight EVERY DAY and with the warm of last week the fishing hormones will kick in if they haven't already. You will want to check out a new river or get reacquainted or with one so don't waste time booking a trip with me. It's still February but I'm booking up April, May and June at a good pace. It's always first come, first served so don't wait. CONTACT ME!!!
Upside Down Dries
I've always liked this experimental fly and it's still experimental because it has never really gained a following. The idea of this style is to hide the curve of the hook from the trout which, as we now know, really accomplishes nothing (maybe) except making the fly land gently. The big drawback to this style is that the wing, usually made of a stiff post of mallard or wood duck, got in the way of the hooking. But what if you made the wing of soft, flexible CDC instead? I can hardly wait to try this puppy out during the first major mayfly hatch this Spring.
It's just a bit of a bear tying this dry but you should get the hang of it.
Minimal Scud
Take a size 18 to 22 scud hook and the thread seen in the photo. Wrap about 3 layers of thread over the hook and rib it with some midge flash. That's it! That pink thread has a nice waxy look to it and it has that "shrimp" color to it. Try it out!
Meanwhile Over On The Swift...
SLOW!!!!! The Y Pool has the fish AND the fishermen. The Pipe had a nice pellet hatch with a good head of fish hitting the surface last week. There are fish down there but I think they are avoiding us.
It's like this every year so don't lose hope. There's always the Farmington. Check out the UPCOUNTRY website for their timely updates!
On Making Camp Coffee: "And then there were the aesthetics of the situation. My gear, with some notable exceptions at both ends of the scale, is largely of moderate quality - serviceable, but not extravagant - and my camps are cozy but far from posh. Expresso seemed out of the question. Not long ago I spent hundreds of dollars on a fly rod but an extra seventy-five cents for a pound of coffee still rubs me the wrong way. Once established, priorities must be maintained." - John Gierach from Trout Bum
It was 73 degrees yesterday and I've had a trip to the Swift on Tuesday during this balmy weather with limited success and limited space to fish in. I'll be there tomorrow (Thursday) in the snow, hopefully, and under less packed conditions. My favorite haunts are flowing high, cloudy, and cold with snow melt and the Deerfield is of no interest. Actually I'm thinking of Spring and Summer and have just made camping reservations for the Farmie for early August.
I love trout camping! Whether it's on the Farmington or on Maine's Moose River or somewhere in the White Mountains there's something about wood smoke, camp cooking, getting up at dawn, camp coffee, breakfasts that are politically incorrect: eggs, bacon, sausage, homefries and english muffins (and no fruit salad), fishing till noon, tying flies, napping in the shade and then hitting the evening rise. This is the Gierach School of Fly fishing. If this offends you find a B&B!! One of my favorite memories is fishing northern Maine at the end of the season after Landlocked Salmon. Me and my friend Myron slept on the side of the road, got up at 5 am, had a cup of coffee, two slices of Sarah Lee coffee cake, sausage and eggs and then fished till sundown. Dinner was Yakitori Chicken (Myron is a renowned chef), two shots of Jim Beam and we were off again the next day. The final day, on the way home, we found a Maine roadside establishment and had our fill of civilized junk food. It was a great trip!!!!!
The Farmington and it's dry fly fishing is seared into my brain and some of my best experiences have been at the Campground Pool, Greenwoods and at Spare Tire. Campground is my favorite because few go there, it's loaded with BIG trout and my experience is that one does not need to get too tiny with fly selection with a size 20 being about the smallest. Greenwoods is great but it suffers from the same malady as the Church Pool upstream - too many people. For some flyfishing is a social occasion with chatting about equipment and technique taking up as much energy as fishing. When I fish I'm usually alone (but never lonely). One fly shop owner told me that he doesn't like the Swift, not because of the trout but for the TALKERS who can't stop. We're there to fish, REMEMBER?
The EB has been on my mind as of late and that's even after the poor Fall fishing on that river (thank you, DFW). This is another great dry fly river. In 1999 I fished ONLY drys from Memorial Day through October and 90% of the time during the Summer and Fall it's drys and soft hackles. During the Summer I like to work big bushy flies from late afternoon until the first trout begin to sample the evening hatch and that's when the comparaduns come on in sizes 14 and 16. The fly above is a good example of a bushy fly with a deer hair wing and palmered body. I'll think I'll call it the EB Adams since it has the grizzly hackle. My go-to-rod is a 4 or sometimes 5 weight and it will handle every occasion even when I'm down to #18 which is rare and it will give me the opportunity to throw some weight which lighter lines have a problem with.
Today On The Swift
I pulled into the parking lot at 7:15 to find Bill's car there trying to beat the weather. Gary came in right behind me. I waited for him and we walked up to the Y together. Bill, Gary and I were the only ones there for 3 hours. Bill caught 2, I caught one on a size 8 rubber legs (tired of throwing small flies) and I'm sure Gary nailed one after because he usually does. It was a slow day with sleet. It seemed like the winter of 2015.
Things will get better! Lost Rod and Reel
I have a notice that someone lost a rod and reel probably by the main Y Pool parking area. Let me know if you have it and I'll send it home.
"I'm talking about a handful of headwater creeks near my home that flow off the Continental Divide out of two national forests and a national park, although the seasonal crowds, theme park atmosphere and the political correctness that now passes as fisheries management have put me off the park in recent years. I'm more interested in the low rent wilderness with no so-called "facilities" and no entrance fee: "public land" in the truest sense of the word." John Gierach from Fool's Paradise.
"Any port in a storm", as the old saying goes and that port has been the Swift River. In particular it's been the area above Route 9 and the Y Pool to be precise. I was first in the water at 7:20 am on Friday and by 10:45 I was the 10th when I left. All of the regulars were there and I do enjoy their company but as I said to Gary "I'd do anything to be able to fish a freestone right now". The Pipe parking lot has been an ice rink of late and I've heard that it's been deadly slow down there (please brag if you disagree) and the bubbler appears to be fishless. Let's face it - this is the goofy time of the year where we have to resort to fishing artificial environments or break out the tip-ups and jigging rods! Basic Midge Emerger, Size 24
Quinapoxet Update -
In February of LAST YEAR I reported on the lack of news about the Quinapoxet Dam removal project. Well, wouldn't you know, on Friday the MWRA received $40,000 from a state grant to "pay for plans to remove the Quinapoxet Dam in West Boylston". Now, before I start waving the pom-poms for this news I have to ask: haven't we been down this river before? I've had some people "in the know" who have said that the $$ has already been allocated years ago. I thought that maybe, just maybe, we were beyond the planning stage and ready to put this out to bid. Removing this dam is critical for improving the fishery on the Quinapoxet. Saying that you've received the $$$ is one thing but what is the money for, another "feasibility study"??
Stay tuned!
Just Thinking Out loud
As readers know and probably don't want to be reminded, I am a fan on John Gierach. Last night I was reading his Fool's Paradise about another camping/fishing trip of his when it dawned on me that I have NEVER been on a trout fishing trip where I didn't spend the night in a tent except last November when I spent a night in a motel with "fishermen's rates". There's something about getting the fire going, making "camp" coffee and cooking those breakfast foods that we try to avoid while in civilization. I don't think I could actually sleep in some "boutique" joint and I don't like Andes mints anyway!
"As no man is born an artist, so no man is born an angler" - Izaak Walton
Photo by Thomas Ames, Jr.
Nothing gets the attention of a fly fisher like the word "stonefly" and large stoneflies really get our attention! I'm talking about the BIG guys like the Pteronarcys. A few words of note are in order.
Our response depends on our geographic location because the eastern angler will not see the stonefly blizzards that greet our western friends. In fact, our hatches (May and June mostly) are rather sparse by comparison.
Unlike many aquatic insects these big stones have a life cycle that doesn't span just a year but will live in that nymph form for up to three years and grow up to two inches long. That means that they are a constant presence in that large form all year long. I've scooped them up on the EB in September when conventional wisdom proclaims that only the small insects are in the stream.
Rivers like the EB and the Millers are jammed with big stoneflies while the Swift has very few if any. I've seen some nymph skins down in Bondsville but they are still fairly rare down there.
Stoneflies crawl up onto rocks and logs to hatch so your imitation needs to be heavy and hugging the bottom to be successful.
Save The Date
I'll be at Charlie Shadan's Evening Sun Fly Shop on Sunday, March 4 at Noon for a presentation on the Millers and any of the other rivers that I fish. Even though my name is misspelled on the notice I will be there.
One of their favorite fall patterns around West Yellowstone was a two inch long, heavily weighted stone fly nymph. They demolished brand new graphite rods with it. They pelted themselves in the head, shoulders and body with it. They cursed the fishing style required to fish it. And, of course, they caught fish with it. When I fished alongside them with my floating line and sparse soft hackles, I caught fish too, sometimes less but oftentimes more. I was having more fun, though. The angler who noticed this first was Paul. "You stay right in there with those little flies, don't you?" he said once to me as I released an upper, teen-sized brown - Sylvester Nemes in the Soft Hackled Fly Addict
Here I go again beating the drum for soft hackles. As readers of this blog know the SH is my favorite subsurface fly because it represents virtually ALL insects from the smallest of mayflies and caddis to huge stonflies.
It was only about 15 years ago that I found myself on a stretch of the EB on a morning in late May. A friend of mine gave me a BIG tarantula dry which immediately became my indicator after I dangled a large partridge and yellow only 18 inches off the bend of the fly. When I mean large I mean size 8! The tarantula caught a fish or two but the partridge and yellow rules the day as I fished some of the heaviest riffles I could find. I switched over to a partridge and orange and the party continued. Needless to say the trout liked that fly which was about the size of your larger stonefly nymphs.
My fly box has soft hackles from size 8 to 18 with 12 and 14 being the sweet spot. My hackles are from partridge, hen and starling. Don't mess around with tiny bags of feathers but buy the whole skin.
Hen is totally underrated as a soft hackle feather. It is very inexpensive and looks great as it moves in the water. I bought a beautiful olive hen cape at the Deerfield Fly Shop which should last a year. Starling is great for smaller flies but it can be difficult to work with because it is so fragile but it makes nice little BWO nymphs so you must have it!!!
I intend to experiment with making larger soft hackle flies up into the size 4 range but that's another post.
"You can start fly fishing in the Spring when the leaves on an apple tree are the size of a mouse ear" - Old bit of sage advice from someone who didn't know their ass from third base
What if Picasso tied flies? This abstract cubist definitely saw reality through a different prism than the average hook and hackle wrapper. It's fair to say that he was not into exact imitation and "impressionistic" tying might have constrained him. He would have been an abstract tyer for sure!
A Picasso Dry would have had two sets of tails, fore and aft, and no wings. Hackles would not be placed on the thorax or palmered on and certainly not in parachute form. Hackles would be placed dead center on the body.
Will I fish this fly this Spring or take a look at it then and say "What the F___ was I thinking?
Maybe I'll have a great new fly. Maybe not. We will see!
This is what happens when you get cabin fever or the shack nasties as it's called now. The perfect fly fishing life is to be able to fish without freeze-out, arctic wind conditions where you PRAY for a 40 degree day here in New England while daydreaming about that second week in May. We are stuck here for a while and even though we may wave the pom-poms for the Farmington in the hope of rising trout we KNOW that this is not what we want. Quill Gordons and Hendricksons are what we want and that means SPRING. WE NEED SPRING!!!
That will come! If you don't think that we need Spring to really fish may you be damned to a GAME OF THRONES Winter!!!!
Book Your Outing
Just a reminder - April, May and June are being booked so you want to claim a day before it's too late. Remember, I'm available 7 days a week and have added two new rivers to my guiding list.
United Fly Tyers
I had the pleasure of addressing this group about the Millers River. Decades ago I used to go to their meetings to pick up advice on tying and their knowledge and passion about our sport continues. If you want to get into tying check out their meetings and their website.
"Really, the only thing a psychiatrist can do that a fishing guide can't is write prescriptions" - John Gierach
It's been years since I've and enough Griffith's Gnats in my fly box to make a difference. I gave up on this fly BECAUSE I didn't know what it represented. A cluster of midges? I did't buy it!! But then I had that "light bulb in the head moment" on the EB when some ants hit the water. My ants were back in the Jeep but I had an ancient G.Gnat and that peacock looked like that shiny exoskeleton of an ant. So off came the hackles on the underside and the fly worked fine until I lost it.
Now I love this fly because of its simplicity. It represents nothing and everything much like soft hackles. It's easily tied up by the dozens and it's a rugged little guy. I say little because I use them in sizes 18 through 24. I've also experimented with self dyed grizzly hackles in brown and slate gray. They look great!!!
Then there's the Royal Coachman, a study in Victorian material excess if there ever was one (please exclude the salmon flies). But I just had to tie one and I'm promising myself to launch it on the EB this June.
The Groundhog said 6 more weeks of Winter but what does he know? Statistically he's right only 38% of the time.
