Some Things I Would Like To See And Stocking up on Soft Hackles

"Oh yes, I remember that trout. It was my first on a fly, and it was a brown" - E. Donnall Thomas Jr. in Whitefish Can't Jump

This past month it seems like I'm in full production mode when it comes to vise time and the fly that I need to fill those holes in the fly boxes and to complete the fly orders are the soft hackles. The venerable Partridge and Orange tops the list with the Partridge and Olive coming in second. Personally I don't think that one pattern is better than the other except that the "Orange" is fished more thus it lands more fish so it becomes the "confidence" fly.

The key to ANY soft hackle is to build it SPARSE. More turns of hackle will ruin the fly, period!! Keeping the hackle turns to a minimum is easy when you use starling hackle (it's fairly small) and fragile.

If I Had My Way.....

1. There would be no fly fishing competitions on public water. I outgrew the fishing derby mentality when I was 10 years old. I don't get angry, depressed or jealous if someone near me catches a lot of fish. I'll get my share and btw, I compete against TROUT, not people.

2. There would be no Group Events on public water. There is really nothing worse than a van or two full of fly fishers taking over an intimate stream like the Swift. That happened a few years ago and I got my ass chewed out by an influential local who thought that I had something to do with it. I didn't!!  I've turned down other requests by groups who wanted me to join them on other rivers like the Millers.  As I've said before the most asked request by clients is for me to show them places that are not crowded!!

3. The use of stomach pumps would die a quiet death.  So, Mr. Trout has spent the last two hours sipping in size 30 simuliidae (he'll need a lot of them to get his calorie ration for the day) and then Mr. Flyfisher catches him on a size 30.  Mr. Flyfisher then pumps Mr. trouts guts out, saying "hmmm...size 30 simuliidae. Guess I was right", and then releases Mr. Trout because he doesn't believe in harming trout.  WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?? Mr. Flyfisher just wasted 2 hours of foraging energy and possible injury to Mr. Trout to answer a question whose answer he already knew!  Give the trout a break and just release them!!!

4. So Called "Secret Spots" - I never give the location of an unstocked stream that has "stream born" trout in it's waters but if it's stocked it's fair game.  When I wrote the Flyfishers Guide to the Millers River I was basically copying the Farmington and Housatonic Guides that are true gems.  They name every pool/run/riffle and how to approach them and they are fun to read. Are they giving away secret spots?  Not really. All the good spots on popular rivers are known by most anglers and being tight lipped about a location that may be fished by dozens of anglers in a day makes no sense.  

5 below zero as I write!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ken

Spring's Wiggler Revisited And Book Me

"Trout are among those creatures who are one hell of a lot prettier than they need to be. They can get you to wondering about the hidden workings of reality." - John Gierach

It was decades ago when I first saw a photo of this Michigan steelhead fly and it was love at first sight!- The Springs Wiggler! Then it was a relationship that never got off the ground. Every few years this fly would "wink" at me from some fly fishing magazine and I would be smitten all over again. That's been my life with the Spring's Wiggler. (Note: it is sometimes referred to as the SPRING WIGGLER but it was invented by someone named Ron Spring so we will refer to it as his fly).

Why I liked this fly - IT LOOKS LIKE A BIG NYMPH!!!! A big Stonefly, a big Hexagenia nymph, a big Hellrammite, I'll throw in a crayfish for good measure but not some stupid junk fly that looks like NOTHING because back then they didn't have a lot of junk flies . Flies looked like insects or bait fish and not a product of an acid trip!




What I didn't like about this fly - First, being a traditional steelie fly it is tied BIG and that's big as in size 4 and 6.  I was hell bent on reducing the size to trout size (10 or 12) and that was my downfall. You see, the recipe for this creature calls for grey or red squirrel tail which looks great on a large fly but sucks on a smaller fly as in "out of proportion". It gave the finished product a squat, "crushed butterfly" look instead of something that swims for a living.  So, I gave up for a while and placed the rejects in a bass box where they killed at Wachusett. (no trout, just smallies).

I never give up for river trout or any fish that lives in a river. It was when I was driving home from an evening on the Millers (the best time to fish that river) that my eureka moment came. Why not change that god awful hair shell and go with peacock or ostrich. The profile of the fly was reduced. It looked like an insect belonging to the river and I caught trout. Case solved!!! Me and the Spring's Wiggler are back together again and will never part!!!!!!!

This fly must be fished near the bottom. (remember all those big nymphs I mentioned earlier? Well, they live on the bottom). Two ways to do that is with split shot, the most versatile way, or by building a bead into it. Don't wrap lead wire around the hook
because it will ruin the profile of the fly and we don't need anymore lead in the environment.

This is the freestone fly you need for freestone rivers when you are dragging the depths  in the Spring and even in the Summer. These flies are active all summer long. The EB was LOADED with big stones that hatched in late last August into September when some "experts" claimed that the big flies are over for the season. They didn't see the Isonychia all over the place. They also don't see the ants, crickets and hoppers all over the place after Labor Day which provide calories for trout heading into the Fall.


I think I need to go fishing!

Ken


                                                                                 Booking This Spring
                                                                                 Some of you have already done this and have reserved your dates. What I try to avoid is an 11th hour rush for any spot that's left. Booking now is easy and there's no deposit and you can cancel at any time.  That's what I do!!!!
Ken

The Secrecy Of The American Dry Fly And A New Angle At Soft Hackles

"In January we begin to think about fly fishing and to look forward hopefully to the season which is not very far away.  We wish to be as keen as mustard when the trout streams are open to us at last.  The spirit of the boy lies dormant in many of us  and only needs to be released by just going fishing." - Theodore Gordon

Theodore Gordon is one of the Saints of American Fly fishing but he was, like some others, reticent to give up the secrets of the fly tying trade. It was said that if a friend knocked at the door for a visit Gordon would stop tying, stow away the tools and then not bring up tying in any following discussion. That never stopped him from picking the brains of Eric Halfords or G.E.M. Skues, two predominant English fly fishers of the day, for patterns, tying techniques, materials etc. Gordon himself taught only one other person to tie flies.

Rube Cross, another great Catskill fly tier, had the same secret streak about him.  He was approached by Walt Dette, a future famous tier who as only 20 years old at the time and offered fifty dollars (a lot of $$ at that time circa 1930) for fly tying lessons. Cross turned him down! Dette reconstructed Cross's flies and started his own trade that lasted 50 years

Why were  Gordon and Cross so reluctant to share secrets?

It has been said that Gordon had a bit of family money behind him but his main source of income was his fly trade. Cross cobbled together an income beyond flies by working on town roads, being a nightclub bouncer and publishing a book or two on fly fishing. They were not men of means by any means and protected their work as if they were in a guild. They guarded their fly recipes and tying techniques but that was soon to change and for the better.

First, remember that I said that Gordon taught only one person to tie flies. That person was Roy Steenrod and after Gordon died he passed on Gordon's secrets to everyone who was interested.  We tie today because of him. BTW, he also invented the Hendrickson fly and taught us how to tie it!!

One more Note - not all believed in the secret powers of certain patterns but felt that presentation of the fly was paramount and the high priest of that cult was George M.L. LaBranche.  His book, The Dry Fly And Fast Water, is a classic and a favorite of mine but the following observation by an associate of LaBranche gives us a glimpse into his ideas about fly patterns: "I wish you could see them! I never saw so many rotten flies in my life.  You know the stuff - Mill's Best, and a bunch of English flies. Of all the miserable soft hackle, lathered on in bunches! It is no wonder that he became such a magnificent caster.  If he hadn't learned to put those flies down so carefully they would not have floated". (from Catskill Rivers by Austin M. Francis)

Even with "rotten flies" LaBranche caught a lot of trout.

Here's a different angle to a soft hackle>

1. A body of orange floss or copper wire

2. A few turns or partridge

3. A few turns of peacock for the head

I think that the peacock would work just as well as  it has for Ricks Caddis Emerger on the Deerfield decades ago and for Lenny below the Duck Pond on the Swift.


Think Spring

Ken

Simplified Dry Flies

"The only reason I ever played golf in the first place was so that I could afford to hunt and fish". Sam Snead

Back when I started to tie flies (back when Nixon was in office) you were NOTHING unless you could tie a fully correct Catskill dry fly and not an easy one either! Try matching and mounting duck quill slips if you want to test your skills or preparing stripped hackle quill for a genuine Variant style as tied by Art Flick. One felt a sense of accomplishment that you felt  when you were able to follow the recipe so that the dry fly actually looked like the dry fly in the magazine and didn't sink like a rock or fall apart after the first fish.

Now, was all that honing of tying skills and the adherence to copying some pattern exactly really necessary? Well, unless you are tying for museum collectors the answer is no. The old Catskill flies were not that good to begin with and todays no-hackle patterns do a better job of imitating a mayfly or caddis. There are reasons for this:

1. A simple dubbed body (or thread in small sizes for the body) presents the profile of an insects body better than hackle and top heavy wings can ever do.

2. Catskill Drys, because of all that absorbent material, had to constantly be dried, fluffed up, gooped up or dusted up to make them work.

Thanks to the Comparadun we now have a very sturdy style of fly that is much easier to tie and stands up to abuse better the the older styles. Wing material is now of synthetic material that wants to float and can be shaped into any wing profile that you want.
I still use deer mask for my larger flies (12 to 16) but everything else is synthetic. The emerger pattern to the right has a olive thread body, a small wing of synthetic material positioned just right and it will float all day. Remember, most of the rises that you see are trout hitting an emerger and not an adult insect!

Parachutes - I tie them because they are fun to tie and even look dainty and cute BUT I seldom fish them anymore and I really don't like a 360 circle of hackle fibers anyway.  That's just me!

As I write it's 1 degree above zero, 4 degrees below zero when I started to write.  Nick Lyons, the great publisher and former writer for Flyfisherman Magazine, once said that there was an off season even if there were some rising trout somewhere in our Northeast but  he  needed the downtime in the dead of winter to regroup, to re-examine what he was doing and to have that time to plan ahead to balmy times when rivers are calmer, insects are hatching, and trout are really feeding.  Fishing at zero is a zero game best left to those who must catch a fish regardless of horrid conditions. This is best left to tailwaters where conditions are, well, predictable! Fishing at 30 degrees can give us rising trout in the right environment. Fishing in the forties can give us great days but none of us will give up those early Spring days when the temperature kisses 50 degrees.  That's when it REALLY all starts.



That's two months from now and that's not too far away!!

Ken

Holtshire (Orcutt) Bridge Removal And A Soft Hackle Bivisible

"They say you forget your troubles on a trout stream but that's not quite it. What happens is that you begin to see where your troubles fit into the grand scheme of things, and suddenly they're just not such a big deal anymore". John Gierach



Bill from Tully filled me in first. The demolition and replacement of the Holtshire Road Bridge that spans the Millers River in Orange at the stretch known as Orcutt Brook has begun. Actually it began five or so years ago when the bridge was closed to vehicular traffic but not to foot traffic. Now both ends of the span are gated off. Now, what does this mean to fly fishers?

1. Access may be denied even with the construction of a footpath over the railroad tracks on the north side. I bet the footpath was constructed to give WORKERS access to the site and not us.

2. Temporary easements have been granted to park and store construction equipment and workers vehicles during the project. That could very well be in the spots where we have traditionally parked our vehicles.

3. Forget about the DFW stocking off the bridge if the bridge is gone. This may be a good thing because it will force fishers to EXPLORE instead of doing the same old, same old!!

One can get to the river by going up and over the tracks or bushwacking down Orcutt Brook or becoming friends with one of the neighbors for parking purposes but the REAL question would be if law enforcement will force us off this active construction site. This will not be a month long project but should last many months. We will see!!!

Soft Hackle Bivisible

I wanted something BIG that would imitate some of those large caddis and large mayflies (such as the March brown) that we see in the Spring.  Using TWO partridge hackles over a body color of my choice would work. This fly has action and looks great when it's wet! The Millers and the Ware wold be the perfect hunting ground for this pattern.

Check out the color of the March Brown that I included. Same color scheme as the Bivisible?  You bet!!!!!

Ken

P.S. As of now (Friday morning) the Swift is down to 400 cfs. Fish it today before the snow storm!

A Mid Winter Nights' Dream - The Millers

The strike to a deep, dead drifted nymph is signaled, if at all, by a very slight bump, juggle, twitch, jerk, hesitation, wiggle (or whatever you want to call it) in the floating part of the line or leader and/or by an equally slight movement, flash or shadow on the bottom. G.E.M. Skues described the latter as "that cunning brown wink underwater, referring to brown trout, of course" - John Gierach, Trout Bum

One of the common requests that I get when someone books a guided trip with me is "I'd like to fish some place that isn't crowded". Actually, this is a fairly simple request that is easily accomplished, even on the Swift where it seems that 75% of the flyfishers on any given day are at the Pipe and the Y Pool leaving the rest of the river uncrowded. I am more than happy to oblige my client because I don't like crowds either and can find 50 yards of open, productive water fairly easily, even on the Swift. When they make the same request of a Millers trip I know it will be EASY. The Millers is an easy river to disappear on!!

Much of the fly fishing on the Millers occurs at Rezendes, Orcutt Brook and the Kempfield section. The South Royalston stretch sees little pressure and the same is true of the two tiered Gorge Pool. The UTD Pool is unknown to many and the water above the Upper Trestle Pool is really a Nomans Land. The same is true for the water below Bridge Street. I don't feel that I'm giving away any State secrets here because I've been beating the drum for this river for years but the same old spots are still crowded because of easy access and it's where they stock the trout!.

My favorite time to fish this river, or any freestone,  is on Summer evenings because that's the best time to fish ANY freestone. The heat of the day has dissipated, the sun begins to sink below the ridges and the swallows are darting about feeding on the growing number of mayflies and caddis.  Something else begins to feed on them and that is signaled by a rising trout. Soon there are rises up and down the Millers and you will have the place to yourself on most occasions and that is because most anglers fish bankers hours and will be off the river by suppertime.  This is what I dream about on dark cold Winter days.

All rivers have their local fish hawks who shun the crowds in pursuit of trout. Bill R. and Sam, The "Boss of Bondsville", can be found in hidden places along the Swift. Bill from Tully KNOWS the Millers and I know that Gary C. knows more about the EB than anyone.  They are not "gear heads" but fly fishers!!!

The Marlboro Show And Am I Going -  I placed my Fly Shack order a month ago so there goes one reason. I don't need another fly rod or fly reel so there goes another reason.  I don't need any new places to fish because I love my local rivers.  There's your answer.

PS The Swift has dropped about 120 cfs in the last week. We should be below 500 cfs in a day or so.


Ken

The EB, The Swift, Blood Worms

"His tackle was Spartan, basic, what I considered then to be barely adequate: rod, reel, line a few spools of mono, and, worst of all, a single fly box containing a handful of patterns. He was not, and is not today, your typical uptown fly fisherman. The fact that he regularly caught more and bigger trout than I did was my first hint that I might be overlooking something basic" -John Gierach describing the legendary angler Ed Engle

First off, frequent commentator Gary C. heard through the grapevine that the MA/RI Council of TU will NOT be holding their annual weekend-before-Memorial Day camping,fishing bash at Indian Hollow on the EB. Secondly, if this is true will it effect the stocking of this river? Now, backcast a half a dozen or so years ago when TU failed to reserve Indian Hollow (that's the story) and ended up at Trout Brook near the Quinapoxet River. We contacted the DFW back then with the same stocking question and were reassured that the stocking would not change. It didn't. Now we may have the same situation and may I suggest that the stocking be done over mid April through May instead of a massive du of trout about 3 days before the the customary TU event. That change would result in a more natural fishing experience other than someone claiming that they can catch 50 freshly stocked trout in a day!   So, if anyone knows of the TU plans just contact me.


Blood Worms

Why are the Pipe and the Tree Pool of the Swift so loaded with trout? The answer is the State trout hatchery. The outflow of the hatchery changes the chemistry of the river. In the Swift, above the Pipe, under normal conditions, you will occasionally see a rising trout but below the pipe into the Tree Pool you may see dozens sipping the surface. That is because the trout are after midges be they Chironomidae, Simuliidae or a host of others and these morsels are being flushed into the river by the millions. They ,the midges,love the environment created by the waste product of thousands of trout and one of the critters that get flushed into the Swift would probably be the blood worm. BTW, blood worms create havoc at waste water treatment plants!

I like this fly because I can whip up a dozen in no time and I don't have to attach gills and such to make it work. Just a scud hook from size 18 through 24, red thread, twisted red thread for a rib, and maybe a white set of gills. Cover it with Sally Hansen and you are all set. Fish it off of a weighted nymph or by itself with some split shot if needed.

The Swift is dropping and as I write it's at 549 cfs which is the lowest flow in the last three weeks. I don't know if you've noticed but we have had little rain and no real snow in the last month and a half. The water table is high so we are not in trouble on that front. All I want is a normal Summer with normal rainfall (whatever that is!)

Ken

The Peacock And Black And My Possum Caddis Nymph

"We are so tied down to the pursuit of the essential dollar that we lose the best and most innocent pleasures that this old earth affords. Time flies so fast after youth is past that we cannot accomplish one-half the many things we have in mind, or indeed one-half our duties. The only safe and sensible plan is to make the other things give way to the essentials and the first of these is fly fishing" - John McDonald, The Complete Fly Fisherman: The Notes and Letters of Theodore Gordon

Simplicity is King especially in fly fishing and fly tying and the Peacock and Black is an example of this.  Friend and reader Gary Cranson, the Wizard of the Westfield, pointed this out last Spring and I became a quick convert to the "black Fly".  While going through book collect in search old old soft hackles patterns I found the Peacock and Black.  This fly works:

Hook - 14 to 18

Body - black thread from the bend of the hook forward.

Thorax - a half dozen turns of peacock herl lashed down with the black thread

Hackle - Starling

Fish this fly upstream and across the current on the dead drift.

The Possum Caddis Nymph

This fly has been with me for over 30 years and is a top producer on the Millers River which is a great caddis river.  I've been tying this with hackles as of late and fishing it as I would a soft hackle fly. The key to its success is that wonderful buggy possum fur.

Hook - size 12 to 16 wet fly hook

Body - loosely dubbed possum fur lashed down with fine copper wire

Hackle - Partridge of course.

One can weigh this fly with a bead although I've been very successful with simple split shot.

This fly works best when its gone through hell and becomes VERY buggy.

This Winter Season

It is pretty safe to say that I'm in my waders 5 days a week from early April through early December.  From December through March it's down to once a week and the rest of this "fishing time" is devoted to fly tying which is an activity that I would continue to pursue even if I could no longer fly fish.  It's safe to say that fly tying is an art form that has a couple of centuries under its belt and to understand and maybe even master the old techniques gives one a sense of accomplishment.  I can't extend that feeling to the current world of Junk Flies!!!!!

Watch The Clock

We have been gaining precious minutes of daylight every day this month. By the 31st we will have gained 48 minutes!!!!!!

Ken

Thinking Of Rivers - The Westfield System And Book Me

"In 2009 I fished the EB from Memorial Day through Labor Day with nothing but dry flies and caught a lot of trout BUT all of the fishing was done from 6 pm through dark. That's when the trout began to "look up" because that's when the insects began to hatch." - Me

It happens every year at this time. I start day dreaming about Spring and Summer when the "living is easy". Now, don't get me wrong, I fish and guide through the Winter and actually like it but my favorite time of day on a trout stream is on Spring and Summer evenings when the freestones are flowing just right,the insects are hatching and trout are feeding! Now I'm relegated to tailwaters like the Swift or the Farmie which is our port in a storm (and I'm thankful for this) but I'd love more options and one of those options is to split a day between the West Branch and the Middle Branch of the of the Westfield River (or just spend an evening on each).

The WB and the MB are smaller than their larger cousin the EB. Their combined flow is roughly half that of the EB but this may be their secret charm. People flock to the larger rivers thinking the fishing is better but that can be a big mistake. You will have miles of water with very few people to deal with on these two wonderful streams and you will have the browns and rainbows to yourself! Because of their smaller size and steady flow these rivers are PERFECT for a tenkara rod! Gary Cranson, the "Wizard of the Westfield", has been fishing these branches all of his life. Two of his favorite spots are Trout Rock on the WB and the lower MB. I love the lower MB because it may have the smartest trout of any freestone in Ma.
The Lower MB

If you are interested in getting away from the crowds and in fishing beautiful water then book a date for the WB and/or the MB. Early May through June is a good place to start!

BTW, I'm already booking for this Winter AND for this Spring. Don't wait too long!

Speaking of Winter, we are still braving the monster flows of the Swift. Thursday I saw a wader who was almost up to his arm pits in the Y Pool. The water was so high around him that his elbows were dragging in the water.  I hope we don't have to drag the river for him.  BE CAREFUL!!!

Ken

The Incredible, Edible, Egg

 

you can just use split shot to sink them under your Indy (FYI there is no reason you cannot add split shot to a Euro rig when necessary, the best way to do this is with a Drop Shot rig that has the weight on the bottom with your flies on droppers right above it) without having to put on a heavy "Sacrifice Fly" to sink your small fly/flies. Indicators are also a godsend on windy days that make Euro nymphing a nightmare. From Upcountry Fly Shop, 12/31/19

I wish I had coined the term "junk fly", You know, that cartoonish collection of pseudo "flies" that have clogged the waterways over the last few years. Be they Mops, Blobs, San Worm Worms, Squirmy Wormies, Green Weenies, Rainbow Warriors or whatever they represent nothing found in a trout stream.  What is curious is that one popular fly is always included in that mess when it should have a place of honor in the Fly Fishing World and that is the Egg Fly AKA The Glow Bug!

Now, you may think that Ken slipped on some ice and hit his head because he's standing up for this fly but there's a very good reason for this and that stems from my personal belief that a fly should look like a natural item on the trout's menu in the same way that a pheasant tail nymph does a great job of imitating a mayfly nymph. This very simple creation represents a trout or salmon egg (or sucker egg in the Spring) better than most flies represent the intended insect or bait fish that they represent.  My only gripe is that this fly is usually tied too large for the fish in the river.  Mine are all micro eggs on size 16 and 18 hooks and they work very well below an active redd.  So, let's elevate this deserving creation.  It deserves it!!!

My Pheasant Tail

This one has olive colored tail fibers wrapped around the hook shank and a thorax of brown beaver. The wing pad is mallard pulled over the thorax and then hit with a black sharpie. (Many mayfly nymphs will have much darker thoraxes just prior to emergence.


I get a LOT of satisfaction by catching trout on natural looking flies. Remember, It's not how many you catch but how you catch them.

Late New Years Day we settled down to a roast pork stew.  I call it a "stew" although there is very little moisture content.  Well seasoned pork loin is seared and then surrounded by potatoes, onions, carrots, mushrooms, and bok choy in a roasting pan set to bake covered at 320 for about 1.75 hours.

Cold weather comfort food!!!

Ken