Another One Leaves Us - Alan Petrucci of "Small Stream Reflections"

 

We lost a true fly fishing friend with the recent passing of Alan Petrucci, the author of that well crafted blog "Small Stream Reflections".  Alan was a lover of small "blue lines, great classic fly patterns, great photography and great looking sandwiches!

If you haven't seen Alan's work then just Google up his blog and feast your eyes on over 12 years of great reading. 

This has been a bit of a hard winter with the passing of Swift River stalwarts George "wooley bugger" Cunningham, Bill Ricardi and now Alan Petrucci.  We need to feel and see Spring quickly and we need to fly fish.

Read some of Alan's blog posts and then find a "thin blue line" to fish.

Ken

A Dressed Up DSM Caddis And The Care And Feeding Of Ferrules

 

Caddis are the kings of freestone rivers. A fertile river with moderate temperatures is exactly what this insect likes. That's why the Millers and the Ware are loaded with them and that's why the Swift River isn't.

I have always liked the DMS Caddis because it works.  Here are a few changes:

Scud hook replaces the standard straight shanked hook.

Ice Dub (that's what I call it) in brown or olive replaces the grey natural beaver for the dubbing. (Just the right amount of glitter!)

Peacock herl replaces the ostrich herl.

In a few weeks we will see if this recreation works!!

A few days ago I got an email from a reader who had a "stuck" rod. I gave him instructions on the "2 person pull" and it worked.  But an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Follow this advice:

1. When assembling the rod DO NOT jam the sections together. They are designed to be put together with just the slightest pressure.

2. Stop rubbing a ferrule against the side of your nose to lube it up.  This dumb trick used to corrode more nickel silver ferrules than everything else combines. The fit should be a "dry" fit.

3. Don't twist the rod sections together. They are not to designed to be abused like that.  Twisting can weaken the wall of the tube and maybe cause the rod to fail.

4. Stay away from the ferrule garbage that's out there. The tiniest amount of paraffin or dry bar soap works great.  I've been using Ivory bar soap to clean my bamboo ferrules and it should work on graphite too.  I also use Ivory soap to "tighten up" a ferrule so don't use too much!!!

Flies and Flies

The orders are coming in. Thank You!  If you want the newer version of the DSM Caddis just order the older style from the order page and then send a short email mentioning the switch.

Ken

A Harbinger Of Spring - Those Tiny Stoneflies

 "Soon after I embraced the sport of angling I became convinced that I should never be able to enjoy it if I had to rely on the cooperation of the fish"- Sparse Grey Hackle

All it takes is two days where the temperature breaks 50 and then you will see them: The little stoneflies will be everywhere along your nearest trout stream. I live on the banks of the Mill River in Northampton and these little critters are all over my back deck and windows.  How they survived the two day warm spell is anyone's guess.  That two day warm spell came with a lot of rain which broke up some serious ice jams that caused some spots to overflow.  Those little stones crawled to the shore and against those odds made it to safety.

I've never had luck imitating the little stones on my favorite freestones but the upper portion of the Swift (Y Pool, Bubbler Run) has been ok because of it's controlled flow.

As I write this I can hear a few Spring time bird songs outside. The season is changing!!!

Thanks for the fly orders.  Keep them coming!!!!

Ken

Early Season Strategies

 

Sinking Lines, Secret Weapons And Book A Trip

"There's no greater fan of fly fishing than the worm" -Patrick F. McManus

Back in the day, back in BG (before graphite) it seemed that nobody with any sense would fish one of our larger rivers during the Spring high water without a sinking line. And I mean a SINKING LINE as in a Cortland Wet Cell 2 as opposed to a sinking tip line by any maker.

Sinking lines get you DOWN so you can short line, tight line and high stick your brains out but still make traditional casts to swing streamers and soft hackles and such. And don't believe the conventional wisdom that these are a bear to cast because they are not. Picking 50 ft of line out of the water may be a task but who does that anyway. Most of our fishing is withing 25 feet.

The key is the length of your leader material (notice that I said "leader material" and not leader) which should be about a 5 foot section of 3x for those high water, heavy fly conditions.

These lines are cheap and you should have one loaded onto a spare reel "just in case". It has saved the day for me on the Squannacook to the EB and especially the Millers over the years.

BTW, the Wet Cell family of sinking lines does all my Salt Chucking too.

Thin Blue Lines

Spring is the time to hunt along these streams.  Look for ones that are NOT on any stocking list because a trout out of one of these streams may be the prettiest trout you'll ever catch.  So before you line up on the Farmington or the Swift or crowd out the Orcutt Section of the Millers try a Blue Line.

I love bead chain eyes BECAUSE they actually look like the eyes of a large insect or crayfish plus they add just the right amount of weight to beat heavy flows. I tie them on small buggers meant to imitate dragon fly and damsel fly nymphs and they work. In fact, many years ago when I worked the shores of Wachusett Reservoir for smallmouth it may have been my top fly.

Go to a local hardware store for the beadchain.

Folks, I'm booking up this Spring for the Millers, EB, MB, Ware and the Swift. Just email me and the date is yours!

My Experiment And Browns Of The Ware

                 "The best times to fish is when it's raining and when it's not" - Patrick McManus

This is the time of year when we let the creative juices flow as we sit down at the vise. It happens every year and some times the results will actually work while at other times you will find yourself on a stream looking at one of these mid winter creations at the end of your leader and say to yourself: "What was I thinking?"  I don't think it will happen with this fly pattern. Say hello to bead chain again!

This fly has a built in trigger and that is the set of big eyes. Dragon fly nymphs as well as Damsel fly nymphs have this attribute. So do sculpins and crayfish and if you venture into salt water flats with this fly you will mimic a number of crabs.

Now, another key to this fly is the reduced weight of the fly. Bead chain will sink a fly but not like a bomb like lead or tungsten will.  If I need more weight I'll put on a micro shot a foot above the fly. (I'm ridding myself of using lead which should not be in the environment.

This Spring I'll be putting the mini buggers aside and going with this concoction which I believe will catch fish.

Back on January 18 2022 I posted the recipe for this fly so just backcast a few posts to find the instructions.

Browns 0f the Ware

One evening last Summer I took a ride to the Ware River and fished not at the Church Street bridge but maybe close to 3/4 of a mile upstream. One has to walk between the corn field and the river and the first thing you see is that very few, if any people, travel up here.  The second thing you notice is that the pools and runs up here are deep and brown trout friendly.  I swung soft hackles and tossed a comparadun and that fly took two browns that amazed me by their size which was in the 4 to 5 inch range. The year before the DFW tossed in a bunch of 8 inch browns. My little guys HAD to have been born in the Ware and I was happier catching them then catching 14 or 16 inch fish that were dumped in.

Maybe the DFW should take some time off from sampling the Swift to death and check out the potential of this neat river. BTW, it is reasonable to believe that 90% of the fly fishing on this river is done within 200 feet of the Church Street Bridge.  SPREAD OUT!!!

Flies For Sale

Order now before I get really jammed with orders.

Guided Trips

Everyone has their favorite days or weeks to spend on a river and when yu finally get around to booking a trip you find out that someone else has scooped up that date(s). BOOK EARLY!!

Ken

Streamers And A Caddis

 

Streamers And A Caddis

" 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

I don't fish streamers in fresh water very much but when I get the chance to chase stripers and blues I have a few favorites that I like. 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.

Blues inhaled this fly when I first used it in Florida 3 year ago.

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!!!! (maybe)

I also needed to stock up on some old reliables and one is the simple DMS 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


Ken

A Good Freestone Fly - The Millers Bug

 

"If people don't occasionally walk away from you shaking their heads, you're doing something wrong". - John Gierach

If you only fish tailwaters like the Swift and the Farmington you will not need this fly unless you are in a tailwater the day after it's stocked (trout will hit anything then). But if you fish freestones like the Millers, EB or the Ware YOU WILL NEED THIS FLY from mid-May onward because it represents one of the biggest meal tickets a good old freestone brown will encounter and that is the large nymph of the dragon and damsel fly species.  

Most of our encounters with this critter are kind of "after the fact", the dried out husks of dragon and damsel flies are all over the boulders that line the river or on boulders that protrude from the river surface.

Why freestones? It appears that dragons and damsels prefer the warmer and less sterile environment that you find on a natural trout stream (so do most aquatic insects but that's another story. The next time you are on a freestone in June check the rocks to see what I'm talking about or check out the photo on the right. There you have the adult fly, which trout don't see to care about, and a couple of husks left on the rocks

I's amazing how that big 2 inch adult can squeeze out of that small shell!!

Trout chase the nymphs and if you are lucky around the beginning of June (on a hot, clear morning) you can see this game in action.  The Bliss Pool on the EB ranks #1. Just walk out towards the opposite bank and you may just see the trout slashing away right at the shoreline. I can say that the EB has the most of these insects with the Millers coming in second. I've actually seen a Millers brown beach itself chasing these nymphs on the island at the Kempfield Run.

What fly to use?  We are imitating the nymph and not the adult. The adult in the upper photo is a wonderful light green but we want to use a drab brownish wooly bugger in around a size 12. Cast it out and let it sink for a few seconds and then strip quickly in short bursts. 

Here's another fly to use and I think it works better than the old WB.

It's at the top of the page and it's the Millers Bug:

Hook - nymph hook size 14 or 14

A little wire at the thorax to weight the fly (not too much)

Tail - Partridge fibers stripped from the stem.

Body - Brown Senyo's Laser Dub (just the right amount of flash)

Hackle - Brownish/tan hen hackle palmered back to front

Head - a few turns of peacock

Yes, I know it looks like a Sparrow fly but I wasn't thinking of that fly when I first tied it (honest).

Tying Flies and Booking trips

I don't think any guide knows the Millers and the Ware like I do. Some may show you the popular spots but I can show you a lot more than that!!  Book a trip!!!!!

Ken