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