The Flies I use

 

"Fishermen who care too much about the size and numbers of fish they catch are insufferable on good days and as hurried as overworked executives on slow ones".  John Gierach

I don't really believe in "super flies", those semi-mythical concoctions that are supposed to work all of the time.  Many are designed to catch the attention of trout and flyfishers (an attractor) such as the rainbow warrior and not to imitate a natural stream born food item such as your basic drab nymph.  Size, shape and movement are the most important elements of fly design which is probably why the cursed wooley bugger catches so many fish.  I've been high sticking buggers upstream for a few decades and tie them with some weight and a little flash and always in black, olive or brown.  

Drifting buggers so they get down deep makes a lot of sense. They represent a food source that's found near the bottom but are often fished as a mid level streamer being pulled against the current like a baitfish which is not as effective.  That will attract freshly stocked trout but as trout wise up after being stocked that strategy begins to fail.  I remember June and July evenings on the Millers where  a small (size 12) bugger was the ticket until around dusk when I began to see rising trout and then the game changed to light colored soft hackles and then to comparadun flies when the light dimmed.

I would not venture onto a tailwater like the Swift at mid day or later during the early summer without a good supply of the fly pictured in this post.  A soft hackle Sulphur is deadly when the Sulphurs are hatching. High sticking or swinging this fly will get it done. Size 16 is the best.

Remember one thing - early season success, many times, is the result of fishing over new (dumb) fish with flies that mimic nothing that is found in the stream.  You will do well until the season changes and the water flow drops.  I LOVE LOW WATER. Many of our tight line brothers and sisters HATE that condition because those depth charge weighted nymphs sink too fast and get caught up in the weeds. A soft hackle emerger plays in that mid current zone which is what you want!!

Ken

Stoneflies And The Millers

 

Fish sense, applied in the field, is what the old Zen masters would call Enlightenment: simply the ability to see what's right in front of you without having to sift through a lot of thoughts and theories and, yes, expensive fishing tackle."John Gierach

The Millers River is loaded with Stoneflies. When I first started fishing this river back over 30 years ago I was absolutely astonished by the sheer number of stonefly casings found on the rocks along and in the river. Not to be confused with the damsel fly (that's another story) the Stone becomes the main insect for trout hunters from late May through June on the lower Millers from Wendell Depot downstream. It's never been the star of the show upstream in Royalston (Bears Den) like it is miles below.
(photo by Thomas Ames, Jr.)

The Stonefly nymph is more valuable to the fly fisher than the Dry version. Any stimulator/small muddler type will get the job done imitating the egg laying adult. The nymph is one of those aquatic insects that hatches not by rising through the water column but by climbing rocks that protrude above the waters surface or rocks along the shoreline just like damsel flies, many caddis and Isonychia nymphs. This environment is characterized by riffles. Fish the riffles and pocket water in late May and June by dead drifting this fly on a short leash!!

I've featured some stones in the past but my favorites always fall back on a larger nymph that has a yellow/brown cast to it. No need to go nuts with hackle and other things when building stones and I've found that good old ostrich works well imitating gills and legs.

Hook - size 10 nymph hook with some weight added.

Tail - some partridge fibers

Body - I use a synthetic yellow dubbing with some sparkle built into the fibers. Synthetic holds up well to rocks and trout

Gills - light brown ostrich palmered around the full body or by the thorax. I prefer the thorax style.

Wing Pad - I've used everything from duck quill, turkey quill, bunches of pheasant tail fibers and so on. The one above has a pad of Thin Skin which also works (golden oak is the color of the thin skin)

Added Feature - Run a brown sharpee down the back of this fly and you'll have created much of the color scheme of this insect.

All the streams are getting into good shape.  Get out there!!

Ken

My Toughest Trout

"I don't really know how to tie a fly until I've tied a hundred dozen of them". John Gierach

 

First, the toughest trout, the ones that are burned into my memory, have never been Swift or Farmington River trout but are freestone river trout such as two that I took in the Millers and the  Squanacook over a span of 20 years.   Why is that?  That's because those two trout found a spot in the Millers that they felt safe in and never left those two spots for the entire season. Their chosen spots were fairly shallow drifts with overhanging brush which meant your casts had to be PERFECT. One bad cast, and there were many, and they would be down for the day, sometimes longer.  I never really encountered that situation on tailwaters where the whole river is trout friendly. A Summer freestone has fewer friendly spots and you have to find out where they are.

A Squannacook brown took advantage of it's overhanging cover for over two months until a perfect cast of a size 16 sulphur (type) fooled that 16 inch brown.

I fished for a very reluctant brown on the Millers from early June until my October birthday. Its spot in the current was almost impossible to present a dry fly to. It was still hitting emergers even after a night time rain so I switched over to a size 16 partridge and orange SH, draped the leader over a boulder and finally hooked it.  It was only 12 inches long but if every future trout is exactly like that one I would be fine. P.S.

In short, I've caught plenty of bigger trout but not better trout.

P.S.

There's a brown on the Ware River that has found the perfect hiding place and has tempted me for two years. Maybe this year.....

Ken