Dry Winter, Dry Spring, Wet Summer

Harry Darbee had yet another way to locate springs when he was learning the river.  "If you see bright green algae, that's what they call "frog spawn", a slimy algae, a leaves, no stems, no nothing.  Whenever you see that you've got cold water."  "Why do they call it frog spawn?" a fisherman asked.  "Because that's what the old timers and country folk thought it was.  They didn't know their ass from third base." From Catskill Rivers by Austin Francis

The Millers in South Royalston

It seems to happen at this time almost every year and that are the dire warnings  and concerns about the lack of snow and how it might  effect the Summer conditions.  First, it's way too early to raise the alarm about drought.  We have had winters like this before.  For instance:

1. Way back in 1992 we had a horrible snowy winter. I remember XC skiing in Harvard Forest in Petersham in APRIL. By the end of June we were into well into two months of next to no rain and it ended up being a dusty Summer.

2. The above photo was taken in March of 2007.  A bad Winter??  Hardly. We had no snow that Winter until when that above photo was taken.  How was the Spring and Summer of that year? Actually it was wetter than normal.

3. 2009 was the wettest Spring and Summer that I've seen in Central Ma.  To remind you how wet it was just remember that Quabbin overflowed that JULY!!!!  What happened after that? The spigot got turned off that Fall and stayed turned off from the Winter, through the Spring and into the late Summer.  2010 was the lowest I've seen the Millers up to that point and it followed  the wettest Summer of 2009.

Personally, I don't give a damn how much snow we get BUT I care about how often we get rain. Normal rainfall is the best without flooding or dry spells.  A Summer with normal rainfall serves the trout well.

Joe Brooks Loved Blondes

Joe Brooks was a flyfishing innovator.  One of his best creations was his "Blonde" series of streamer flies.  They are great flies because they are very simple in design and construction and they catch fish.

You can make them small to catch trout or large to catch salmon to bluefish to stripers. The beauty of this fly is that even when it's exceeding 6 inches it's still very easy to throw out there.  It is nothing more than bucktail or craft fur tied VERY sparsely.  The body material creates the profile but makes it easy to cast.

Some may say that the blonde is an arcane fly and modern flies are an improvement but I believe that less is more and firmly believe that this fly is the saltwater version on Frank Sawyers Killer Bug - total simplicity.  If Sawyer ever fished the Salt he would of loved the blondes!!