CDC vs Poly Wing Yarn

"There's more bullshit in flyfishing than in a Texas cattle yard" - Lefty Kreh

Fly fishers like one or the other.  I like one and that's poly wing yarn, the finer the better.  I once was a big time user of CDC feathers on small dries but I've changed my ways for what I think are good reasons.Let's talk about those reasons and the history of CDC usage.

CDC is a loose translation for the French term Cul De Canard which basically means bottom of the duck.   It first hit the fly tying stage back in the early 1980's and it was treated as a wonder material. Yes, it could float but it had some drawbacks:

1. It was said that these feathers resided near the preen oil gland of ducks and geese and were saturated with the stuff.  One marketing genius tried to sell the preen oil as a floatant and totally failed because it was the structure of the feather that made it float, not the application of a floatant. That's why CDC flies sink if any liquid or gel comes in contact with it.

2. (Here's my favorite bogus reason for using CDC) - CDC works because it comes from harmless and benign waterfowl (ducks and geese) that pose no threat to a trout.  Now, if that were true trout would have been beaching themselves to get away from the nymphs I used to make with raw, untanned MINK fur. (I wish I still had some). Years ago feathers from blue herons and  kingfishers were tied into flies and they caught a lot of trout!!!

3. CDC is fragile stuff.  It gets chewed up quickly which means your flies will have to be replaced.

A Better Way

1.Use Poly Wing Yarn. It's nonabsorbent (CDC isn't),

2. You can buy miles of it for next to nothing (not with CDC)

3. It's dainty and fine but tough as hell (tougher than CDC)

4. It comes in a zillion colors but you only need three

I can tie dries and emergers down to size 28 with this stuff without making them too top heavy.  And after releasing a fish just wipe it with a paper towel (yes, a paper towel) and give it a shake with some silica powder and you're back on the battlefield.

A Word About Silica Powder

The stuff is great because it wicks away moisture and doesn't gum up the fly BUT the stuff that comes with a tiny applicator brush is a joke and here's why. 

Most of these products are the "shaker" variety: dump the fly in the bottle, close the bottle, shake 2 or 3 times, open the bottle and fish. This works because the manufacturers of this product threw in "silica gel" along with the silica powder. The gel (tiny rocks) "moves" the powder around to coat the fly. Because the bottle top is closed during the application you do not lose any powder. This is a good idea!

Now, the guys with the applicator brush need the brush to get the powder on the fly and on everything else from hands, sleeves, waders to the surface of the water. One writer says don't use it in Montana because Montana is too windy!!!  If silica gel was used you wouldn't need the brush.  It was a bad idea!!

Keep fishing!!!!!

Ken

Happy Thanksgiving

"I think I fish, in part, because it's an anti-social, bohemian business that, when gone about properly, puts you forever outside the mainstream culture without actually landing you in an institution" - John Gierach 

Happy Thanksgiving

The Season Continues.....And Book Me

"Angling is extremely time consuming.  That's sort of the whole point." -  Thomas McGuane

Upper Swift Brown

As I write this in the pre-dawn hours the first snow of the season has covered the neighborhood lawns. Years ago, before I discovered the Swift and the Farmie, my freestone season would grind to a halt with the first snow. That's not the case over the last 20+ years as the tailwaters provide the "fix" that we need to get us through this dark season.  It has been a GREAT year on the Swift with some notable changes.  Let's go over some of them.



First, I've seen more big browns this year than in the past. "Big" means in excess of 20 inches with many measured in pounds and not inches.

Second, the brookies have changed their habits. Some traditional spawning grounds were chock full of fish while others like across from the Gauge and the Duck Pond were empty.  The Gauge stretch, which runs along the opposite bank for a couple of hundred feet, used to attract a hundred brook trout.  Last year was a bust because of the high water but this year the flow was perfect but still nothing.

The riffles below the Duck Pond were prime spawning ground until 2017 when it was invaded with green algae which covered the spawning beds.  The brookies went elsewhere.  Then 2018 brought the flood but I expected a recovery this year.

There are still a lot of brook trout in the Swift and one season does not make a trend.  The DFW should spend some time studying this instead of electroshocking clonebows, a truly artificial fish!!!!

Let me echo the words of frequent contributor "Falsecast": Stay off the gravel beds especially above Route 9. Much of the spawning is winding down and because you may not see trout doesn't mean the eggs are not there.  Stay off the gravel until February.

                                                                                    A couple of bows

There are still plenty of fish in the Swift but you have to fish for them and that means trying out some "roads less traveled".  Yes, I know that I sound like a broken record but fishing the same old place with the same old characters gets old very quickly. Why not fish Cady Lane and I mean DEEP into Cady Lane?  Give Bondsville a try or maybe the 2nd pull off on River Road.  What have you got to lose, a spot at the Pipe or the Y Pool????


Book Me

I know that you have some unused hours on that 2019 licence and you don't want to let them go stale, do you?  Now's a chance to learn a new section of a river.  Contact me.

Good to see you Saturday on the Swift Alex B.  I wondered where you went!!!!!

Ken

Copper Grouse vs Partridge And Red, Rod Care And Book Me

"If I'm not going to catch anything then I'd rather not catch anything on flies". - Bob Lawless

It's that time of year when the weather is still fishable (much like early April) but it's been months with the same techniques and flies and I needed to shake things up. No, I'm not on the streamer bandwagon because I like small flies and light lines and light rods. So we change up the fly recipes and see what happens.

As I mentioned in the last two blog posts I worked up two flies - The Copper and Grouse and the Partridge and Red. I fished the P & R first through a 50 yard section twice and took 3 brook trout between 6 and 8 inches.  Then I switched over to the Copper and Grouse, fished the same water where I took 2 brookies between 11 and 14 inches.  All this took a bit over 2 hours.

What does all this mean????  Answer = NOTHING!!!  It's just me entertaining myself.  Both flies will work at any time.



Broken Rods Again

Yup, I read AGAIN where another angler broke ANOTHER nymph rod!!! Without a doubt this style of construction has not stood the test of time and we as rod owners practice some careless habits that hastens a rods death and that's why I think it's a good idea to reprint a post from a while ago on this subject.

It was May of 2017 when the end came. The rod broke in mid section while casting a soft hackle on the Bliss Pool. I will say that it was a memorable occasion BECAUSE I was into my 14th year with that 8 foot, 4wt graphite rod and it was the only time a rod of mine broke while in the act of fishing! The rod was built by a club member and I won it in a raffle and its sweet moderate action made it my "go to" Swift River rod or whenever I knew that I would not be casting bead heads and such. ( I leave that task to the stouter rods). I put lots of mileage on my rods, easily more than the average angler, but I am careful with what I do. That's why I'm still fishing 10 year old rods (and catching fish!!)

Operator Error or Material/Design Flaw??

It's almost always operator error and I'm not taking about car doors, trunk lids or ceiling fans but the careless things we do while in waders. (I'll discuss design failure later) Here's a good list:

Candy Cane Rod -

You've seen this and you may be guilty of it too. You are bringing in a trout with your rod held at the high NOON position so that the tip is horribly stressed.  It will break then or 200 casts later and we will blame the rod company but it's really our fault. Now, years ago in the age of bamboo and fiberglass rods were always shorter so netting a trout was much easier. Now we have 10 and 11 foot rods which makes it harder to reach the fish with a net. The result is to Candy Cane the rod. Instead, hold the rod behind you as you extend your net arm so that the rod forms a sloping arc. That way you are fishing a "shorter" rod putting the fish closer to you.

Ultra long rods  can present problems for the short armed, vertically challenged among us.  One solution is to hire a gillie!!!

Death By Beadhead

Before beadheads came around we added weight by wrapping lead wire on the hook shank and then cushioned it with dubbing and wraps of material.  Then we began to see (well, I think so) an increase in breakage especially in the tip section. I knew a saltwater guide whose clients broke four quality loaner rods one season learning to cast clousers!!!  The beadhead fly can hit speeds of 200 mph on the cast! All it needs is to just touch the rod tip and you will have a broken rod either then or later when it finally fails. That's why that special rod of mine lasted so long - no beadheads!!!!

Seating Ferrules 

Make it a habit to check the seating of your ferrules during the day on a river.  A loose ferrule will weaken the wall strength of a graphite or glass rod.  AND DON'T TWIST THEM ON!!! Push together, push apart and that's it. Twisting will also weaken the wall strength and you may have a devil of a time taking the rod apart.

Don't Walk With The Rod Tip Behind You

Two fly fishers were walking along a river, one behind the other. The first one had his rod pointing behind him.  He suddenly stopped walking but the guy behind him didn't and rear ended him breaking the guys rod tip. The rod tip is the most fragile part of the rod and I want to know where it is all of the times. So, rod tips first!!!

Or Material Design Flaws And The Problem With Warranties 

As I said most rod failures are due to operator error but one has to take a long look at the design of many rods, especially the nymph variety. They are stretched out to 10 feet and over 11 feet in some models. They are incredibly light with sensitive tips and if what I see on internet searches is to be believed they have a fairly high failure rate. It appears that they just don't stand up to fly fishing.  Here is my suggestion: If you want a new rod then search the web for everything about it for breakage (those forums are loaded with info.) and if you see more than two complaints about breakage then find another rod company.

So what's wrong with warranties? Actually everything!  Let's say you buy a rod for $800 and it breaks in half on the first day out (this happens, check the web). You send the rod back with $50 and wait for the repair or replacement. In the meantime you are saying things like "$50, that's reasonable".  Did it ever dawn on you that part of that $800 price tag may have been made up by factoring in the cost of the warranty.  Maybe you are paying on it twice! Remember, the rod companies are NOT going to loose money on you!!!

I like an honest warranty that covers materials and workmanship only. The fly fishing industry sailed over the Falls when it offered  "no questions asked about the dumb ass way you mishandled the rod" kind of warranty. Maybe we would appreciate the craftsmanship more and take better care of rods if they were not so easily replaced!  

Book A Trip

RED

"I think, however, it should be the ideal of the sportsman angler to take his trout, where he can do so, by means of imitations, representations, or suggestions of its natural food presented in the conditions in which the trout is feeding on it". G.E.M. Skues

G.E.M. Skues, considered in many circles to be the best nymph and dry fly angler of a century ago floated the idea of the color RED as having properties that were best seen by trout under "normal" conditions and those conditions were fairly shallow and clear water. Red has the advantage of being seen at longer distances than the other primary colors, hence it's eye catching qualities.

That brings me back over 40 years ago to the early days of Flyfisherman Magazine and an article written by some long forgotten soul who, like all good fly dressers, used pinkish fur for the bodies of Hendrickson dries. But he went further!!  He began slowly change the color from pink to light red and then to a full red color.  He claimed that the trout couldn't resist  the RED fly  either as a dry imitation or as a sunken offering.  Then, like all good fly dressers, he abandoned the red fly because, well, it just wasn't done!!!!

I've never taken up the challenge of a red bodied fly until just within the past week when a Partridge and Red took some fish on the Swift.  Is it a game changer???  I want some more time with this fly to really find out.  That's the fun of this sport.  We get to experiment.

 The Rivers

The freestones are beginning to ice up (read Garys comment about the EB in the previous post) but if we get some days in the mid 40's that ice will melt and the trout are still there. 

EB - 333 cfs

Millers - 388 cfs

Ware - 109 cfs

Swift - 46 cfs (as usual)

Go Fish!!!

The Well Conditioned Trout

"It requires very little experience to tell whether or not a trout is in condition, the small head in proportion to the body, and the breadth and thickness of the body itself, at once indicate the well conditioned fish" - William Stewart from The Practical Angler.

It is important to pay mind to the quote at the top of this post.  There seems to be a trend in fly fishing to  put emphasis on the L-E-N-G-T-H of a trout and not on the BULK or Stoutness of the fish.

I first brought this up late last year/early this year in regards to the photos of Farmington River browns. They were skinny.  I called them "Brown Eels".  I knew that I wasn't alone on this because of the response that I got from a fly fishing club in Albany NY that I did a presentation for.  They fish the farmie and noticed the skinny fish over the last year or so.

At the same time the Swift has browns that can be considered "fatties".  Why the difference?

 Maybe the Swift has a better forage base, or more accurately, a better "hunter/prey" ratio.  Having lots of small brook trout  (food) will do that.

BTW, the gorgeous brown above was taken on the Swift within the last two weeks on a small Partridge and Orange.  Remember the 6lb brown taken on the Swift and posted on this blog a month ago? It was taken on a size 18 fly. Lesson: you don't need to fling gargantuan streamers to catch big trout!!!

                                                                                         Another Big Swift Brownie

Stay Off The Redds 

It appears that we have had a decent brookie spawn this year (except below the Gauge on the Swift, a real mystery) and to insure that the spawning is successful WATCH WHERE YOU WALK!!  Keep your feet off of the clean gravel and WALK ON THE WEEDS and leaves until late Winter.  By then the brookie eggs will have hatched instead of being scrambled by wading boots.

Your Comments

Keep them coming!!!!!!!  The true value of any blog is  how many READER COMMENTS it can generate plus your comments are the best.

NOVEMBER

The photo on the front page of this blog was taken on a November day on the EB.  November has always been a good month on this river.  Don't miss out on great scenery and big bows.  Book me!!!!!

Ken

The Copper Grouse

"Fly fishing is the most fun you can have standing up" -  Arnold Gingrich

I'm not one to wave the pom-poms for "hot, new flies" or that creature known a a "guide fly". Flies are flies and we have seen them all before but every so often one DOES seem to make a difference. I wrote about the DSM Caddis and now I'll throw another into the mix - The Copper Grouse.

Thursday morning I'm on the Swift swinging a partridge and orange (always a good choice) and I am having some success with the brookies with about 4 to the net in an hour and a half.  It seemed slow so I tied on a fly I had dreamed up that had a mess of subtle colors - orange, cooper and red made up the body with grouse or partridge on the hackles.

That's when all hell broke loose! 2 big bows slammed this fly followed by 6 brookies.  The funny thing was I was fishing the same spot that resulted in slow action earlier AND all of those trout were caught in about 20 minutes.  It had to be something with the fly that turned them on.

 

MOVE AROUND

The Fall results in more movement of fish in the Swift as the brookies are in search of spawning grounds and the bows and browns are in search of brookies yet it seems to be that the same old fishing haunts crowd up first and huge sections remain mostly empty. Yesterday I took a client, who was new to the Swift below Route 9, through the gauge run (caught a nice bow), went through the flats below (brookies), stopped at the Pipe for 10 minutes and then hooked and broke off a rising brown of about 18-20 inches on a size 22 olive emerger down by the horse farm. That brown will be stuck in his memory for a long time AND  the only place where we saw anyone in the water was at the Pipe.

BTW, you don't need to toss monster flies in the Fall for giant trout. That 6lb brown that graced this blog 2 weeks ago was caught on a size 18 fly.  Even bigger browns have taken even smaller flies than that.  The rage now is to toss monster streamers and this rage is fueled by the fly fishing industry which sees a opportunity to make a buck.  People fairly new to the sport need that "cool new thing" fix to keep the enthusiasm up while veteran anglers feel confident in what they use and their catch records prove it.


The Swift

It's been a good Fall and we have a month of it left.  Some BIG, FAT browns have been seen and are being caught.  Don't miss out!!!

Ken

Rating The Rivers, Favorite Flies And It's Not The Rods Fault

"Think of trout as predators (that’ll can be hard at first)" - Comment left on another blog (Of course they're predators! What the hell do you think they are, vegetarians???) - Me

Some years it's a horse race to pick a top river for the year.  2019 can be labeled a "no contest" because  the Swift lands it hands down.  To be fair Mother Nature dealt some bad cards to the freestones in the form of a six month flood that even effected a tailwater like the Swift.  The Swift responded by releasing, via the spillway, hundreds of BIG LL SALMON to play with during the winter followed by a late Spring and Summer of great surface action. (I hope you remember the Cedar Waxwings chasing the Sulphurs at mid day last July. I almost got hit in the face by one of those birds! Between the rising trout and the swooping birds the sulphurs didn't stand a chance.)  As I write we are watching the steady parade of brookies being followed by monster browns which should continue through November.  In my not-so-humble-opinion the Swift may be the best trout stream in New England!!!

Is there a "2nd Place"?  Yes, the Millers and the EB are a dead heat for that position. Late May and June were wonderful on the old Millers and the EB  made up for lost ground with a great Autumn which is still going on.  These rivers will still produce if the flows stay down.

 

Favorite Fly - The DMS Caddis

This became my favorite soft hackle of 2019.  It's somber hue is just right for imitating caddis flies and works all season long.  Hell, it does a good job when mayflies rule the water too. I wrote in depth about this fly on my October 16th post of this year.  It could be that it may be the ONLY unweighted insect imitation that you will need on ANY river, period. (As many readers know I like to carry just a few patterns - a minimalist I guess. This may be my super fly!!!)

The Perfect Trout Rod

I would think that the perfect river rod for trout would be 9 feet in length and geared for a 5wt line. This will take you anywhere that you want to go in Trout Land (Millers, EB, Ware, and the Farmington) and you will certainly not be over gunned in any situation.

8 feet to 8.5 feet is perfect for smaller streams like  the Swift, the West Branch of the Westfield and the Mill River with 3 or 4 wt lines leading the way.

Good bamboo, at 7 feet to 8 feet, gets a pass on length because it just does.  Too beautiful not to fish!!!

Rods below 7 feet leave much to be desired. They might work well on the tiniest of streams but ......  Yes, I know that Lee Wulff caught Atlantic Salmon on a 6 foot rod but I would not recommend it for you.

Many rods over 10 feet long have that weird "hinged" effect which I find unnerving.  I believe that the effect is caused by too much mass beyond the half way point.  Some companies then went to very light weight rods of long length (nymph rods) and we had a epidemic of broken rods.  Stay with a 9 footer!!!

I don't believe in having a rod for every situation. We are not golfers carrying a bag of clubs around.  Find a rod that will take care of most of your situations.  You don't need a nymph rod, a streamer rod, a dry fly rod or whatever.  Settle on "An All-Round Fly Rod" and make it work.

Ken

The "Dark Season" Late Season Freestones And Some Open Dates

"Forget about cleverly timing your cast.  The key to the Tricos is to simply make as many accurate casts as you can and hope that one of them coincides with the trout's cycle.  Put the fly 8 inches to a foot upstream from the trout- again and again and again.  You will risk putting the fish down, but even if you do, it will probably come in a matter of minutes.  If it doesn't, you won't have an trouble finding another one to cast to." - Ed Engle on fishing the Trico hatch or another small fly that's hatching in abundance

I first wrote about this dreaded time of the year back in 2010 and that is when we turn the clocks back.  Gone, until mid March, are the sublime evenings that I have spent on my favorite rivers  when the sun begins to settle behind the hills to that witching hour from dusk to night.  I am a devotee of the evening rise and will always be.  I just can't understand why soooo many flyfishers just totally hang it up before dark.  They must think like golfers or maybe they are afraid of the dark.  I don't know but they are missing the BEST time to be on a river.  Come to think of it I shouldn't complain. I seldom see crowds at dusk and that's a good thing!!

The Freestones In November

The banner photo at the top of this blog was taken in mid November on the EB. We caught trout that day and then followed it up a week later with another great day that included some BWO action.  Many will limit their trips to tailwaters at this time of year and leave the freestones alone.  Big mistake!!! The EB, Millers and the Ware provide very good action during November and the crowds are gone.

Don't fall into the conventional wisdom that the Fall means big flies. Most of the calories that a trout will consume in November will still be insects and young-of-the-year baitfish and they are small.

Open Dates

November 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10. These are good for 3 hour or 6 hour trips on any of the rivers mentioned on this blog.

(Hint: book the EB - it's hot right now.

Ken