The Swift - 114 cfs as usual and it is fishing well. Read my comments section for the past two weeks and you will be reading some success stories from this river. This flow will not change unless we get a lot of rain that will pump up the Connecticut River flow which will bring the Swift down to its historical 60 cfs average. BTW, if you are planning on catching salmon coming over the spillway this November as we did last Fall just forgetaboutit!!! Quabbin will not overflow this year unless we get a foot of rain this Fall. The event is not yearly but close to twice a decade.
Also in the comments section is the report from Tom from Boston on how he caught a mess of brookies and a 16 inch brown on a size 16 beadhead tied to two feet of 2X tippet. You've got to love it.
The Millers - At 77 cfs it is critically low but the browns are still there. Again, read the comments from the previous post. As I've always said the Millers is a brown trout river because the browns hold over through the summer. The bows are nice in the Spring but.......
The EB - This place is scary low (22 cfs) but my friend and frequent contributor and local fish hawk Gary is still successful. He knows where to go and has been successful almost every morning over the past two weeks (again, read the comments from the previous post).
The Farmington - I include this as a local option because it is in good flow at around 144 cfs, lots of bugs and lots of trout. Remember, Upcountry Fly Shop is the REAL source for information and their website reports are updated twice a week. BTW, Upcountry reports that the trico hatch has just about petered out, about a month after another site reported its demise. Go to Upcountry to get the real news on the Farmington.
The rivers are reported to be stocked starting the last week of September. The 10 day forecast includes virtually NO RAIN. The water temperatures are cool enough but it would be nice to have more water!!
A Real Breakfast
Toss that bran muffin and get that yogurt out of here. You deserve a real breakfast that gives you the good stuff like eggs and bacon but also gives you your serving of vegetables which clears your conscience of sin of bacon.
Toast up two pieces of wheat bread
Poach or fry two eggs
Top it off with some Ratatouille (9/2 blog post)
No Ratatouille? Top it off with some hash. Live a little!!!!!
Ken
13 comments:
Hi Ken,
Curious to here if you have tried targeting any of those big browns we have all been seeing hugging the bottom at the Swift. Seems to me like they don't seem too interested in eating most of the time. Are they more active in the deeper water towards the boat launch? I know you mentioned that you were in the process of designing a brookie pattern for the fish that are looking for a feast!
Also, to any fellow readers out there. Recently I've been wanting to try and target Smallmouth bass. I've been doing a lot of research but so far have had little success. Would anyone be able to give some suggestions?
Tight lines!
Jared
Jared,
Believe it or not I'm not trying to target 10+ lb browns in the Swift. In bigger rivers the answer would be yes but I don't want to lug the heavy shit to the Swift which is a small stream. The Swift is meant for light weight gear. Now, that doesn't mean I would not cast for a 5 or 8lb brown on the Swift.
My best smallmouth fishing was on Wachusett Reservoir. There is a gate on Route 70 just west of Tahanto Regional H.S. in Boylston Ma. About a 1/2 mile walk will get you to the water. The next good spot is in West Boylston near the old stone church. Routes 12, 110 and 140 will get you there. Fishing deep with leeches and buggers always produced!
Ken
Jared,
Far be it from me to share a tip, because I still count myself very much a learner in these rivers; but if you go the the Bridge Pool at the Millers this time of year (around 4:00 in the afternoon), it is hard not to catch a smallmouth. The pool is full of them. Granted, they are 8-10 inches, but they do all the acrobatics of the species, spending more time in the air than in the water. Toss a hopper or even a bluegill popper out there and you might get one or more hits every drift. I've "heard" that down closer to the Connecticut it is possible to find them in the 2-3 pound range, but I will rely on Ken to confirm or deny that. Oldtimers might have been putting one over on me.
Best of luck.
Charles
Regarding smallmouth bass, yesterday from 100 yds down from Arch St on down. About 3:45 the small mouth hit anything I tossed on the Millers. A fun 90 minutes. Every 2-3 cast one hit. Best day this year. Hoppers, stimulators, streamers. Also interesting to learn more about the river bottom with the river running so low.
Bill/Tully,
With the river running so slow the holding areas are becoming smaller and more restricted and those hungry smallies should be easier to entice with a fly!
Charles,
The "oldtimers" are right when it comes to the lower Millers holding larger smallmouth. Seems that these big fish are Connecticut River fish that will use the lower Millers to spawn in during the late Spring. I've only caught 2 to 3lb smallies at that time of year and the 4lb fish that I saw landed was caught in mid May.
Ken
Looks like a good breakfast! I have done this with sauteed black beans and it's good too!
GW
Ken,
Back from a trip for work, after domestic obligations yesterday I headed to the Swift with a few daylight hours still available to fish. Fishing soft hackles in fast channels a few brookies cooperated, small ones but beautiful nonetheless as they color up this time of year. Barbless hooks slipped right out for efficient release.
I waded what I call the green mile, that non descript riffle that goes a couple of hundred yards. I have to laugh being the first time I fished the zone I used to walk by, I lost the nice once, caught a nice one the next time and haven't had a hit since, maybe a dozen times swinging wet flies throughout that zone. It is solitude though and I am fine with no action, with hopes of future action being those two I connected with keep luring me back in.
Getting dark, I ran into a fellow angler who had not had much action except for a nice trout that broke off his fly with 6X tippet. I fished the same run and had no action. Getting dark I threw a hail Mary, tying on an elk hair caddis. So dark by now I couldn't see the fly, but heard the splash and felt the tug close to the bank, but connection wasn't made. A real nice one missed, but I felt it on briefly. Trout lost made a splashy roll over perhaps to remind me that it won last night.
Regards, Sam
Thank you for all the advice! I've been tying up a whole bunch of buggers and leeches, a nice break from size 22 midges and soft hackles.
Ken,
Thank you for the helpful pointers for the Wachusett definitely will take a ride over.
Jared
Sam,
It's strange how certain sections can be so reliable and then go cold. There's one section upstream that I fished successfully for 15 years that has become a trout desert. Can't figure it out.
It's getting dark too early!
Ken
Ken
Curious on the lower end of the Millers. Access points ? Other than Smallmouth what else has been caught on the fly ? Trout venture down into the CT there ?
Mark,
1. Access points - around the center of Millers Falls and at a rest area off of Route 2 east
2. Trout have been caught down there. The river in Millers Falls gets stocked.
Ken
I was at the Swift on Saturday morning and had quite a bit of action on a grey/brown crackleback as well as a small elk hair caddis - now I know the crackleback is an attractor and doesn't really look like any real type of insect, but hooked up with half a dozen brookies from 4" - 8"so some fun was had. I am a huge fan of soft hackle wet flys and appreciate your poetics of its importance.
Andy,
I've fished the Crackleback in the past but didn't have the success that you had.
Keep catching trout!!!!
Ken
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