That Caddis Again

 "There's no greater fan of fly fishing than the worm"

 DSM Caddis size 16

 Some times things just work out really well like a certain fly just ruling the day. This "certain fly" was a creation of Ric Flematti of Athol Ma and it wiped out the trout where the Cold River meets the Deerfield on one wonderful evening on that busy river. (Note: try fishing this river and all rivers for that matter IN THE EVENING during the Summer months). I was taking a few but Ric was hammering them and well into the double digits.  His fly was a caddis emerger shown on the left.  I tied some up and they did well but I began to forget about them.

Forward cast about 25 years and I am on the Swift on a balmy October afternoon just below the Duck Pond.  Again, I'm doing ok until My young friend Lenny shows up and goes from zero to 8 trout in a half an hour.  They were all big bows and when I asked what he was using he yelled out "Your Caddis Fly!!

                                                               

Needless to say, I don't leave home without it and it remains the same fly with just one alteration: I don't tie it in sizes larger than size 16. Strange but a size 12 or 14 just don't seem to work as well.

Hook - size 16 to 20m scud hook

Body - grey, tan or green rabbit dubbing

Hackle - Two turns (that's it) of partridge or starling in the smaller sizes

Head - ostrich or peacock, take your pick

Rain

"There are no active storms in the North Atlantic, Caribbean Sea, or the Gulf of Mexico ".  That statement was from a weather service dated 5/27/22 and it should raise concerns among well owners and fly fishers.   A drought like this will even effect tail waters if severe enough.   Yesterday's T'storms did little to push the needle except for fire warnings.

The All Around Rod And Your Comments

 

The All Around Rod And Your Comments

It still amazes me that some "experts" make blanket statements regarding trout behavior. This is, well, kind of dumb! Trout in tailwaters behave differently than freestone trout. They don't have to deal with the environmental stresses of high water, low water, COLD water or warm water. Life is stable for them. A stable environment allows a stable food supply to exist. The biggest bonehead truism that I hear is that trout like to put on the feed bag in the Fall to prepare for Winter. The trouts' need to eat is controlled by the water temperature, period. Trout will feed more at 48 degrees than at 38 degrees. In the low 30's they are shutting down and you have bounce the fly off their noses. Did You Know: Trout consume more calories in May and June than in the Fall and that's not because there's more food then. Kenny Cahill

What Rod?

I get asked this question all of the time. "What's the best all around fly rod"? The answer is simple - it's the one that feels the best during most fishing conditions. Now, that answer is not a cop out but the truth. One rod may feel like a dream under one condition and totally suck under another. You want a rod that feels good and fishes well under as many different conditions as possible. You don't want to be like the newbies in this sport who seem hell bent on turning fly fishing into golf with a bag full of rods for EVERY Condition. Here's what I look for in a rod for trout fishing:

First, We will leave material out of this and focus on the most popular rod building material: graphite. I love bamboo because it is beautiful and if well made fishes well too. Some of the old "factory rods" were best used as tomato stacks. Fiberglass has it's following and I would never give up my old Fenwick which was as good as fiberglass got 40 years ago (a great dry fly rod) but I have my doubts about the newer fiberglass rods which seem too "progressive" (read "slow"). They don't have the zip of my Fenwick.

One does not need a dry fly rod, a nymph rod, a streamer rod and so on. Just a rod that does most things well.

A Small Stream Rod - 7.5 feet to 9 feet in a 3wt. The Swift, the Mill and the North are small stream and you can cover all sections of these rivers with those lengths. Mine is an 8.5 foot 3 wt., of a moderately fast action, matched to a 3 wt double tapered line. I can nymph with this (don't need a nymph rod) and then use this crisp rod to launch dries. Now, I seldom use weight on the on these rivers under normal conditions. A weighted fly cast with this setup leaves something to be desired. (Double tapered lines don't throw weight very well). If the flow is high and I have to use weight I'll bring along a 3wt WF line to solve the problem.

Big River Rod - When I know that I'll be fishing larger water like the Millers, Ware and the EB I'm bringing my 9ft 5wt  with a weight forward line to the show. It is a moderately fast rod that handles heavy stuff really well yet can blast a size 16 BWO out there quickly and into the wind to boot. (big rivers are windy). I can fish EVERYTHING with this rod, period!!!!

A few notes:
1.You don't have to go ultra light with a dry fly rod. I had a client catch a brown on a size 30 fly using his 6wt!!!

2. As I said before, I have guided hundreds of fly fishers and very few show up with a nymph rod or even own one. These rods are not, generally speaking, good casting tools. I own one, given to me as a present, and it is the worst dry fly rod I've ever cast.

Your Comments


As I've said many times, the Comments section of this blog is a blog-within-a-blog and no other New Englad fly fishing blog shows this kind of engagement by its readers. Case in point: my last 10 blog posts before this one had 90 comments. All blog formats cannot distinguish between a readers comments and the authors comment. Comments by me totaled 45 or 34% of my total. Some blogs have author comment totals that are well over 50% of the total or even more!!! You have given us reader engagement and that's what I want. There are no drive bye page views here. You guys are readers!!!

Tail Waters

On the last blog post I wrote a short description of what a tail water is and that is because of some misconceptions that linger out there.

Ken

Ken

Little Wets Can Save The Day

 "Tailwaters are what Thomas McGuane called "the great theme parks of American fly fishing," with their more or less stable water temperatures and artificially inflated populations of insects and fish. They are irresistible for all kinds of reasons, but all of those trout breed the peculiarly postmodern sense that anything short of a 20 fish day is a bust, so when things are slow there's the temptation to lie about numbers or to vaguely allow that you are "getting your share" - John Gierach

Some times my favorite patterns(soft hackles) just don't seem to get the job done.  They always work fine in choppy riffled water but when the pools and runs are low and slow, like this summer, even a size 16 seems a bit out of place.  

What to do? Before I became addicted to SH I always carried a supply of micro wets on the stream.  They were in sizes 18 through 22 and ALWAYS had a tan colored body with light brown WET FLY HACKLE.  This fly has worked on the Swift (the only game in town) from mid July through mid September when the BWO seem to take over.

This fly has done well in the flats above the Duck Pond and down to the slow water by the Second Turnout. Yes, you can fish it at the Pipe and it will do well there (everything does!!)

Apply no weight to this offering but just let it drift downstream letting it rise in the current until the slack is played out and then repeat.

Our Drought

1992, 2010, 2016 and this year.  These are the worst dry years that I can remember in central/western Ma. Two of the above years had a Fall tropical storm save the season but as I write this the Caribbean is storm free and that is unusual and a bit scary.  

Here's where we stand river wise: Millers 54 cfs, Ware 4.0 cfs, EB 14 cfs and the Swift is flowing hard at 110 cfs.  The Swift, at 110 cfs is flowing at 4.7 times the combined flow of the Millers, Ware, and EB!If this continues we may not see a Fall stocking except for the Swift. This happened a few years ago when the EB missed out on the Fall stocking and I believe it has happened to the Squannacook.

A Word To The Wise

Spread out on the Swift!!!  There's more places to fish than the Y Pool and the Pipe. I mentioned two places earlier and there is always Cady Lane which may hold more pounds of brown trout and any other New England river.

Did I mention the brook trout??

Pray for rain!!!!

Ken

Another Really Good Streamer Material

 "If I couldn't fly fish any longer I would still tie flies" - Me

I've mentioned that quote a million times over the past few years and I truly mean it.  It is especially true for ultra dry seasons like this one.  It gives us something to do and scratches that "fly fishing itch" that we have.

Here's the story on this very cool streamer wing material.  My daughter came back from Michael's Crafts with a bag full of this very fine gossamer synthetic yarn and said that she didn't like it and would I like to have it?  Now, I had been hatching plans to commandeer snippets of this material but now it's all mine.

What's it look like?

This yarn is tri-colored, a light blue that fades into a darker blue and then into a dark pink. You can cut off sections of this material and work up 12 inch streamers with it or tie little shiner patterns in a size 12?

It has an absolutely lifelike action and the light blue almost has the color of small eels. Its durability isn't up there with bucktail but it beats 
marabou and unlike bucktail this material likes to sink.

My daughter couldn't recall the name of the stuff but she said it was dirt cheap.   I caught a lonely striper on this material this morning and if the LL Salmon come over the dam this November I'll be waiting for them.

62 degrees this morning.  That's a start!!!!

Ken

Needhami Time On The Farmington

 

Well folks, this damn drought has reduced our trout fishing to the few tail waters that we have. The Swift is flowing at about 100 cfs which is high for me but great for a lot of anglers.  The Farmie is low and the UpCountry website recommends not fishing below the Church Pool until we get rain and a decent flow. (I find that a bit hard to believe that the water temperature would rise that quickly. The little Swift holds it's mid 60 Summer temperature range right down into Bondsville.) 

So let's concentrate on the Farmie and my favorite dry fly on that river. The Needhami, also known as the tiny Hendrickson, is a mainstay on that river. It looks like a Hendrickson with it's body color and slate grey wings but it's a size 22 to 24. Mid to late Summer is prime time for the Needhami but I've only seen true high numbers of this insect on the Farmie although I believe I saw some at Les's Pool on an EB summer morning a few years ago.

Hook - size 20 to 24 standard dry fly

Tail - one or two strands of crystal flash

Body - synthetic brown dubbing

Wing - ultra fine slate colored synthetic wing post material

Summer Sulphur size 18

I was browsing around the internet and saw that someone decided to classify the Gallatine River in Montana as a spring creek.  It's not a spring creek and neither is the east branch of the Gallatine. They may have some small spring creek tribs but they are freestone rivers!

Does anyone know how to do a rain dance??

Ken

C & R Revisited

 

 "We do have to think seriously about conservation now, although it is chilling to realize there are catch and release fishermen alive today who don't know how to clean and cook a fish". John Gierach

Gorge Pool Millers River

Since I've put a halt to my guiding business I've had plenty of time to fish for other species, to some degree of success, and to do a lot of reading.  One of my favorite writers (besides John Gierach) is the talented E. Donnell Thomas. He is an accomplished flyfisher who calls Montana and Alaska his home states and a serious student of BOW HUNTING. This means that he (gulp) eats what he kills. But he doesn't limit his harvesting to mammals and birds but will take the occasional salmon or trout to eat at stream side . In one of his best books Whitefish Can't Jump he gives a blow by blow account of besting a 50lb King Salmon on fly tackle and then supplies us with two endings to the story. Ending #1 has the victorious angler gently resuscitating the salmon and watching it swim away and Ending #2 is a backyard barbeque  with friends and family and a 50 lb salmon providing the feast.  Thomas suggests that one pick their favorite ending.  Mine is the feast!!!!

Some how we got caught off the rails over the last 30 years.  C&R has become a religion worshiping a questionable god.  What are we protecting with C&R? We are protecting mostly hatchery fish which are not really worth anything. Most hatchery fish are long gone one year after we stock them and that's not because they were caught out. They don't have the ability to survive in an environment outside of a hatchery.

And if you don't believe me request that the DFW curtail stocking on C&R rivers for 3 years and then see how many trout are left. The Swifts brookies and monster browns should do well but not rainbows, the majority of stocked fish in that river.

Also remember that destruction of native stocks has much less to do with individual sport fishing than with environmental destruction and in some cases destructive commercial fishing.

August

It may be hard to believe with the temperatures in the 90's but we have lost a lot of sunshine since June 21.  What we need on top of that is some good, old soaking storms in August to get the rivers back up.

Pray for Rain

Ken