The Ups And Downs Of Tailwaters

 

Kempfield Pool on the Millers

Tailwaters drive me crazy especially on a cold wet Spring such as we have had this year. The Swift turned into a freestone want-to-be with a 3 month flood with its flow overtaking rivers like the EB and the Ware. It is, as we know, an artificial river with it's flows mainly controlled by the guys who run Quabbin. Frankly, I like the Swift on days in the dead of Summer but I really love the freestones like the Millers, EB and the Ware on Summer evenings. They are not artificial rivers and are not crowded like the Swift or the Farmington. It is the way trout fishing used to be before tailwaters were invented in the mid 20th century.

Freestone Conditions

The Millers, Ware and the EB are perfect now!!  Try to hit them now in the evening which in the best time!!!

Ken

The Redhead Rabbit

 

This fly is another "old school fly" without any artificial material in it's construction. (I'll give myself a pass on the nylon thread and the metal hooks and wire). Other than that it could of been tied in 1900!

Hook - size 8, 10, or 12 standard wet or dry fly hook

Body - It's all rabbit including the tail and dubbed loosely then held in place with fine copper wire.

If you want  you can weigh it with lead free wire or just drop shot it.

Hackle - I like partridge but any soft hackle will do

Head - As I mentioned the body is rabbit (natural color) except for the head which is RED rabbit fur.

 

Try it!!

The Rivers

Swift - 401 cfs.  It's getting there

Millers - 765. Same shape as the Swift

The Ware - 179 cfs which is perfect  It's fishing well

The EB - 240 cfs

Don't forget Mom tomorrow!!!!!

Ken

Ken

The Worm hook Streamer

 

Make it simple and make it work.  That's what I was thinking when I worked up this fly. There is no body other than the hook shank ( 2/0 Eagle Claw worm hook), a  white  bucktail throat, a blue bucktail wing and a topping of peacock.  It took my first striper of the season on top of that.

I have to admit that this isn't the first time I used this style of fly.  I took some to Florida in a size 4/0 and took some outsized bluefish and then promptly forgot about it after I got back home. That will not happen again!  It's part of my saltwater game plan going forward.

There is no wind resistance with this fly which always seems to be a problem when I'm in the salt.

Ken

Old School Tying

 

"When your friend on the next pool tells you that he's just seen a few "Sulphurs" hatching he is really just suggesting a fly pattern, because the name might mean anything from a size 24 Baetid to a size 10 Anthopotamus Distinctus, two insects with very different behavior.- Thomas Ames Jr.

It was back in the mid 1990's when we had a good Spring flood, nothing like this year, but still epic.  It didn't keep me off the Millers but it kept me fishing from the shore and fishing from the shore sucks.  So did the tackle I concocted to get the distance and depth required: a 9 ft 8wt loaded with mono running line. At the business end of this mess was one of a few lead jig hooks  tied up to look and act like shad flies.

Long story short.  I caught a few clonebows and then went home realizing that there is more to fishing than catching fish and if I'm not casting a REAL fly line I'm not flyfishing and if my fly resembles a depth charge instead of an insect I'm also not flyfishing.

I would rather fish with the fly pictured above than with a day glow bead head any day. 

It's just me but probably not you!!

The Rivers - 

Millers - 779

Swift    - 615

EB       -688

Ware    - 242  The Ware is your best bet

Ken

Once Upon A Time........

 

"Give a man a fish and he has food for the day. Teach him how to fish and you can get rid of him for the entire weekend." - Zenna Schaffer

Red Quill

The dry fly was created in Jolly Olde England by a Mr. Frederic Halford. Samples were sent by mail to a Mr. Theodore Gordon in the USA who immediately began to modify them. This transaction changed the lives of both of these men and anyone who else who liked the idea of catching trout on a floating fly.

The first generation of transatlantic flies floated on stiff hackle tips and really didn't look much like the natural aquatic insects they were supposed to imitate. Improvements came quickly in the form of better floatants, thinner tippet material, better roosters and a million other things that has jacked up the price of our pastoral pastime into the thousands of dollars not counting travel and lodging expenses!

The mantra of many of us is: If I can afford it I'll do it. That is music to the ears of me, a former salesman. But my head still spins when I think of a guy I met who was into the sport for less than 10 years but had over 50 fly rods. I told him that they have treatments for that compulsion. 

He just laughed!

The rivers are dropping.

The Worst Spring

    " Never approach a bull from the front, a horse from the rear, or a fool from any direction"-Steve Mathewson

Yes, some of the rivers are receding and some are not.  The Millers dropped 690 cfs in the last two days. At 2550 cfs it's in tough shape but heading in the right direction.

The Ware has dropped 156 cfs over the same time span and as I write it sits at 345 cfs which is fishable if you are a good and careful wader.

The EB and the Swift are a mess!!!

The great news is that there is no real RAIN in the forecast for the next week.

Ken

In Praise Of Browns

 Backcast to the mid 1980s when the Deerfield/Millers Chapter of Trout Unlimited convinced the Ma DFW that the Millers was a BROWN TROUT river and should be managed as such. Our Chapter worked with the DFW to sample the river by electroshock back in the early Fall of 1990 and the results where predicted. We sampled the river and came up with ZERO rainbows (thousands were stocked that Spring) but we came up with a good number of browns even though very few were stocked that year.  We fin clipped the browns that Spring BUT we came up with a fair number with intact fins.  A few of the DFW guys said they looked like wild fish or maybe were survivors from a stocking two years before. In any event the browns seemed to do well in the Millers but the rainbows "not so much"!!!

Anyone who fishes the Millers knows that by Summer the bows pull a disappearing act but the browns continue to want to play.  This should show us that rainbows are a waste of a resource. Browns are the way to go!!!!

The Flood

We are still dealing with high waters but it will not last forever. 

Ken

Colliding Seasons

In "normal" years we hit the rivers by late March, toss leaden flies to stupid hatchery trout and then by late April Spring is upon us with shrinking flows, warmer temperatures and rising Trout!!!

That will not be the case this season. There's just too much water on our part of the planet to recede that quickly and before we know it the shad will start charging up our coastal rivers followed by striped bass.

That's when the real fishing starts!!!!

I'm getting to the point where if the fish I catch was stocked I'd just as soon fire up the grill and enjoy it.  It's probably a rainbow with next to zero chance of survival and can easily be replaced with a stocking truck visit. (you're right, I don't think too much of hatchery bows.)  I give a pass to native brook trout and brown trout because of their ability to survive.

More rain from Wednesday to Saturday.  Tie some shad flies.

Ken

The Riffle Beater

 

I could see the trout working the choppy surface and I really wanted to take a shot at it BUT made it almost impossible to float a dry amidst the chutes rapids and the boulders. I came back 3 days later with a fly that would take the abuse and still float.

1. Size 10 or 12 standard dry hook

2.Wing - white deer hair

3.Body- Senyu Laser dubbing (a light color)

 4. Tail - Golden Badger hackle fibers

5. A long Grade A golden badger hackle

This fly really shines on rough pocket water ( Millers in Erving) or the EB but is only so so on glassy water like most of the Swift.  

Always carry some!!!

Rain

Eastern Ma had 2.5 inches of rain on Saturday

It will be awhile.

Ken

Slowly but Surely

 

There's a fine line between fishing and standing on the shore like an idiot" - Steven Wright

The great deluge may be over.  Rivers, which have been busting their banks for two weeks, seem to be in retreat.

Here are the numbers for today and where they were last Wednesday, the day with the highest flows this year.

Millers (today) 1670 cfs, last Wednesday 3000 cfs

EB (today) 1080 cfs, last Wednesday 1830cfs

Swift (today) 650 cfs   Last Wednesday 716 cfs

Ware River (today) 690 cfs  Last Wednesday 841 cfs

Don't start fooling yourself that it's safe wading because it isn't.  Give it a week!

Ken

 

Flood Update

 

No, I didn't catch this brown recently because the rivers have gone crazy.  As of this morning the river flows are as follows:

Millers - 3000 cfs

Swift - 716 cfs

EB - 1830 cfs

Ware - 841cfs

I believe that this is the highest I've ever seen these flows and I'm not being overly cautious by saying that you shouldn't even attempt wading flows as dangerous as these.  These rivers could drop by 80% and they would still be too high. I could suggest a "thin blue line" but they may be flooded too.

Hold your horses and take a deep breath, Real Spring will be here shortly followed by a bone crunching drought (most likely)!!

Tie Flies

Ken

Jumping The Gun On The EB

  

"The two best times to fish is when it's raining and when it isn't."

Chesterfield Gorge Access Road

I've had a couple of flyfishers sniffing around to see if any streams are producing, the EB in particular. The answer is NO, especially the freestones. As of this morning (3/8/24) the EB is flowing at 348 cfs and that is with them reducing the flow in half yesterday. With more rain this weekend.........!!!   The Millers is at 1790 cfs. Forgetaboutit!!

Freestone temperatures are hovering at 40 degrees.  Your best bet  would be to hit a blueline this weekend.

By the way, the Swift is at 490 cfs as I type. Don't expect the salmon to fly over the dam and into the Swift.  A little late in the year for that.

Tie Flies!!!

Early And I Mean EARLY Morning On The Millers (Trico Time)

 

Thomas Ames Jr. calls them the White Winged Curse. They can hatch by the millions on sunny warm Summer mornings and it appears that every trout in the river is feeding on them except they will refuse YOUR finely crafted Trico offering every time.

Welcome to the Trico hatch in sizes 22 to 28. Some anglers will draw swords with these critters but after a while will be scanning the surface to find insects that are more accommodating or at least something that you can see!!

How do I fish a Trico hatch?  There are two times. One is in the very early morning. The males hatch before first light and can be taken on the surface or in the surface film. That means you should be on the water around 3:30 in July and a bit later in August. The mid morning spinner fall is stage 2 but I like stage 1.  The trout don't seem as spooky with the darkness.

The conventional wisdom is that your fly should be black with a white wing.  Olive and brown bodies work well too like the one in the photo.  So does a long 7x tippet. 

Where to find Tricos? The Farmington is full of them as is the Millers River. On a summer morning you can see thousands hovering above the Upper Trestle Pool. The guardrails on the bridges are loaded with them.

So, hit the water before dawn in July or August for a real challenge!!

Ken

Fishing The Evening Rise On The Upper Trestle Pool - Millers River

 

"Maybe your stature as a flyfisherman isn't determined by how big a trout you can catch but by how small a trout you can catch without being disappointed."

John Gierach

You are looking at what may be my favorite dry fly water on the Millers River. Look at the photo! The first thing you can see is that it is NOT early Spring after the stocking truck has left. The foliage is in full summer bloom. It's also not October with leaves falling after the stocking truck has left again. It's high Summer!!  This is the time that the "old masters" waited for. They were not ready to flog the water on a freestone at mid day because your chances of success were limited.  They waited for "things" to happen on their streams. Shade begins to settle on the water which makes the insects more active and in turn the trout become more active. Water temperature drops, not by much, but enough to start the feeding cycle again.

The Upper Trestle Pool

Look at the photo again! Notice that the RIGHT side of this Pool is in the shade on hot, sunny day in July.  I'ts only about 6:30 and almost a 1/3 of that pool is in the shade. By 7:30 half of the pool will be shaded and browns will be beginning to rise.

Don't worry about the correct pattern. A size 14 or 16 comparadun in tan will do it all!

If you can force yourself to stay out beyond 8:30 you may have dry fly action that you can dream about on a cold, wet February night!!! Like right now!!!

Next - Predawn mornings on the Millers

Ken

Winter Musings

"Trout aren't naturally as selective as they've become in crowded tailwaters - they've been trained to be like that by too much fishing pressure.  I've seen tailwater fish that are so hysterical they'll refuse naturals. You wonder how they get enough to eat." - John Gierach

Let's face it. If you have a 6 fish outing it can be considered a good outing. A 12 fish day can mean a round of applause. But a 20 fish outing most likely means the hatchery truck beat you there!!  This is a condition that seems to exist in the Carolinas and in northern Georgia where THOUSANDS of trout are stocked EVERY WEEK in select tailwaters.  I guess there is a subspecies of flyfisher who finds this to be sporting and also FUN but all it does is raise the level of expectations to the unreasonable and dare I say, the unnatural!!! Most monster numbers are because of timing, such as hitting a Great Lakes spawning run on the nose or something like that!

Edward Ringwood Hewitt, a great American Flyfisher, mentioned the three stages of flyfishing:

1. Catch as many trout as you can

2. Catch the biggest trout that you can 

3. CATCH THE MOST DIFFICULT TROUT THAT YOU CAN                    

Number 3 is the most important. It will stay in your mind forever. You should know the one.  It refuses EVERYTHING you offer except for that ONE last cast that gets it done. This is not euro euronymphing.

Ken                                                    

The Seasonal Ritual Starts

"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 insitution."- John Gierach

 

It's almost mid-February and I've been tying flies, well, nonstop for the last year (it seems like it's the same every year).  I consider fly tying to be a separate activity from fly fishing as tying is separate from painting your house.  I love fly tying and hate painting houses!!  But something else enters the seasonal picture and that's going over my collection of fly rods.

Thankfully that collection hasn't grown that much in the last few years.  There will always be room for a deserving bamboo rod or three but that will not include trying to resurrect some sad old factory rod that stunk as a casting tool 70 years and is best left on the mantle,

I will also fish a rod that fits the water that I'm fishing.  Tenkara can be fun but it's no fun on the Swift or the WB of the Westfield with all the overhanging foliage.  I've come to the conclusion that you need a BIG river to fish any rod over 10 feet long if you need all that length in the first place. The truth is that the VAST majority of trout that I have caught in over 50 years of fly fishing have been while using rods between 6 feet and 8.5 feet long and I never felt undergunned.  I think that the drive towards longer rods has been, in part, driven by manufacturers trying to create a need which will increase sales.

Ken

A Fat Caddis

 

"Calling Fly Fishing a hobby is like calling Brain Surgery a job" - Paul Schullery" 

I like this fly.  It has bulk without adding additional weight because of the hook which is a Mustad Egg hook, size 10.

If I wanted more weight I'd drop-shot it.  The body is Clarks and Cook all purpose sewing thread in olive followed by spiky rabbit fur (heavy on the guard hairs) for the thorax with one strand of micro tinsel for the rib.  Then finish off with two turns of brown hen hackle.  I'm thinking that this would be a killer pattern in the riffles of the EB, the Ware and the Millers (these are CADDIS rivers) unlike the usual tailwaters). Throw in the Quaboag River and you will have enough water to fish!!

Ken

A Word On Caddis

 

"No fly rod at any price is going to magically transform you into a Lefty Kreh or a Joan Wulff any more than a Stradivarius is going to turn your middle school violin student into Itzhak Perlman". - George Roberts, Tail Fly Fishing Magazine

I've never had much use for the color green when tying flies even when there are so many green caddis in rivers like the Millers, Ware and the EB. I used to grab a case caddis off of a rock and then break it open to see that brightly colored nymph and then just toss it back into the river.  I think it may be because of that bright green color.  It didn't look natural to me but that's my mistake. A few years ago I made the switch to green and that changed everything!

My favorite caddis is the American Grannom that appears by the millions in temperate freestones, like the rivers I just mentioned above, through the entire month of May. At the peak of the hatch it covers the streamside bushes but the real action  (for me) is the migration that this insect makes to get to out of the water.  Most of the trout I've caught using this pattern are taken right at the end of the drift and the hits are usually hard.

Deep Sparkle Pupa, Emergent Sparkle Pupa and the Grouse and Flash are time tested patterns for this insect's life stage. I'm not a big fan of these Sparkle patterns because I feel that the little ballon is unnecessary but many swear by the pattern so I give it a pass.

I saw four robins this morning. It's a start!!!

Ken

P.S. Recipe for the fly in the photo:

Hook - standard dry fly size 12 to 14

Body - bright green rabbit fur

Rib - one strand of micro flash palmered

Hackle - webby hen hackle dyed brown

Tweaking An Old Standard

 

"Hell, give me Greenwell's Glory, and Campbells Fancy and Beaverkill, all wet and about size 12 and May on the big river, and anyone else can have whatever he wants". - Sparse Grey Hackle writing about the Beaverkill River and it's older flies

It's early May and the Zebra Caddis are everywhere except you will not find many on the water surface but in bushes along the river.  They crawl to the streamside by the thousands to do their mating  dance and with so many flying , usually after we shake the bushes around, we think surface action will be great but mostly it's not.  At this point it's a wet fly game!!

My Wet Caddis - This is Simple

A size 14 or 12 hook (I like 12, 16 works too

Black thread (your size)

Tie in 2 peacock herls and wind on for the body

Take one grouse hackle feather and, without stripping the fluff from the base of the feather, wind two turns up and then secure.

The fluff will make the best wing/leg presentation possible.

Yes, it's freezing out BUT only 3 months to go unless you're a freezout nut!!!

Ken

The DMS Caddis And Lost Rods

 

This may be my favorite go to fly that I have for ANY river. The DSM caddis works in any size (these are size 16).  You've seen me highlight this fly in larger sizes but for the Swift, Deerfield and the EB size 16 It is perfect!

Hook - size 16 scud style

Body - grey/ brown rabbit

Thorax - peacock or ostrich

Hackle - one turn of partridge, woodcock or starling

This is a RIFFLE fly and it works best in shallower choppy water.  It's considered an emerger fished right below the surface and it works all season long. I saw my friend Lenny clobber trout in the riffles just below the Duck Pond on the Swift in mid Noverber!!  

This may be the only emerger caddis that you will need all season long.

Well, it happened again. Somebody dropped a rod section and luckily it was found before someone stepped on it.  AGAIN, DON'T TAKE YOUR ROD APART UNTIL TOU GET BACK TO YOUR VEHICLE. That's how most lost sections get noticed on this blog.

The Snowshoe Emerger

 

The Snowshoe Emerger

 

This could be the very best dry fly/emerger pattern that may exist in trout land and that is because of how it is put together and what it represents. 

First, it mimics the the most important stage of the emerging insect - an insect that is struggling to break through to the surface by breaking through the surface film/tension and then flying away as an adult insect. That is what most of the aquatic insects do and the majority of those insects don't make it.  The majority of the rises that you see on a trout stream are trout grabbing these insects while in the film AND NOT ADULT insects riding on the surface.  That's why an insect pattern that mimics the emerger work the best.  That is why traditional dry fly patterns of will fail often.

Why does this pattern work?  Well, it's how it's built. The photo shows a fly pattern that has a dubbed rear body that is meant to SINK below the surface film and a front body, because of it's material, is meant to FLOAT, just like a natural insect.  The front body is made of snowshoe fur or deerhair (the wing). They both work great and in patterns in the size 12 to 16 range they work best and in this size range do much better than CDC which gets waterlogged and slimmed easily.  Snowshoe and deer hair will win because they are rugged and clean up easily. There are many synthetic wing materials out there but I like the natural materials in the same way that I prefer shooting a recurve or long bow instead of a compound bow.  (hope you know what I'm talking about)!

It may be a while (April) before we will cast to fish that are not sipping size 28's. 

Every once and a while I'll check out the euro blogs and see a steady loop of dive bombing trout with heavy beadheaded nymphs that really don't represent any real trout food and are nothing more than attractor flies. They catch fish but so do I with flies that represent insects or tiny minnows in a more natural state.

The great flyfisher, Bob Wyatt, changed my mind on a lot of surface fishing and made me a better flyfisher.

Ken

Freestones = Big Ugly Flies

 

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

I love freestones and the creatures who live in them. It's a very fertile environment that just doesn't hold trout food of a certain size (BWO or mdges)  but insects and crustaceans of all sizes. Don't forget about the baitfish species that swarm in these streams. I've watched trout practically herd batfish to attack them!!  I sampled the bug life with Dr. Ken Simonds on the Millers and captured more insect species then I knew exited there.

You may be asking yourself "what fly do I use"?  The answer is any large fly of a dark color.  The fly in the above photo has been mistaken for crayfish, dragon fly nymphs, leeches and hellgrammites by many trout and smallmouths.

Your first choice of fly may be the old reliable woolly bugger.  Go for it because we all know it works.

Ken

A Note About Leaders

 

"Rivers and the inhabitants of the watery elements are made for wise men to contemplate". - Izaac Walton

I was checking my emails over coffee at 6am today and ran across an article about the problems of using thin tippets.  It reminded me of a blog article that I wrote back in 2015 on the same topic. Here are the highpoints of that 2015 article:

1. You don't need 7x or 8x to fish subsurface. The trout really cannot see that thin leader and I had some very good anglers back me up on that.  When fishing the Swift below RT 9 I seldom if ever go smaller than 5x with a sunken fly and I catch trout. My Tenkara setup NEVER goes below 5x even with a size 18 PTN and it works.  I saw a video of Joe Humpheys fishing nymphs on a limestone Pa stream with 3x and he caught trout.  In short, if your subsurface presentation is orderly and not sloppy YOU WILL TOO!!

2. Ultra light tippets kill trout!!  You see this on the Swift where hooked trout are played to death because we are afraid of break offs. "Catch and Release and Die" is not the game we are playing. Land the trout using a stronger tippet and then release it quickly.

3.  Use a heavier rod!!  I don't mean using a 6wt but a 3 or 4wt will get the trout to the net quickly to be quickly released. There are those that believe that you MUST use something like a 0wt for dry flies! It is simply not true.  I've used my 7.5 foot 4wt bamboo with dry flies all over the 20 size range and was successful.  If you are careful it can be done.  On a windy day you will thank me for the advice.

One last thing: some anglers in the euro nymphing crowd fish very heavy nymphs on the lightest tippets saying that a light tippet gets the fly down quicker.  Most prime euro water isn't really that deep to begin with and getting down shouldn't require depth charges to do it.

Another last thing: I noticed while re-visiting my old posts on the subject that I was preaching using about 5 feet of 3x while fishing heavier water below the surface.  

Hmmm.......

Happy New Year

Ken