Fly Fishing Information On The Millers, Swift, Middle, West and East Branches Of the Westfield River and the Ware, and Mill rivers. YOUR BEST SOURCE FOR MA. FLY FISHING INFORMATION, the top ranked fly fishing blog in Massachusetts! WHAT FLY FISHERS READ!!
Autumn On The EB
Showing posts with label guiding and flyfishing on the EB. Show all posts
Showing posts with label guiding and flyfishing on the EB. Show all posts
"Sylvester was not a dry fly fisherman", his wife Hazel said. " He abhorred bead heads. He would say that was not fly fishing, that you might as well use a spinning rod". - Hazel Nemes recalling her husband, Sylvester Nemes, views on fly fishing.
It was 53 degrees at 4:30 this morning and the heat in the kitchen actually felt good as I whipped up breakfast. No, it's not Fall (the official start is a month away) and we will have enough hot days to complain about until then but the wheels are turning and you can see it with the lower temperatures and the lower angle of the sun. Fall will come and for many, including me, it's our favorite season.
There are two things that I look forward to in the Fall. One is the BWO hatch down in Cady Lane and on the lower Millers and swinging soft hackle flies on some reinvigorated freestones.
And my soft hackle selection will be top heavy with two patterns: the Partridge and Orange and the Partridge and Olive in sizes 12, 14 and 16. These two patterns have worked all Summer. My Partridge and Orange has a body of orange kevlar which gives it a waxy look which the trout told me is irresistible to them. The Partridge and Olive has a body of olive (of course) uni-stretch floss (good stuff). Add in a few Grouse and Flash and last Winters' King, the Copper Grouse, and I will be well armed.
Now, if I get all my ducks in a row this November I plan to swing some LARGE Soft Hackles on some Great Lakes tribs. I'll tie some up in sizes 10, 8 and 6 on a salmon style hook and swing them with a 7wt Heddon bamboo. Why not!!
And The Rivers...
Trout have been caught at dusk on the Millers and they have been caught by early morning anglers working deep runs on the EB. I have always loved August evenings because it is dusk at 8pm so the wait time is down. It's better in the morning too because the sun rises later now. 2 months ago we had blazing sun at 5am. Sun up is at 6:04 today. (much better).
The Swift is at 130 cfs and will stay there unless we get some rain. It is very fishable.
Book me for the Fall
Don't wait too long because slots will fill up quickly and those slots run right into late November, early December.
"It takes repeated encounters with a specific prey item for the trout to get into a feeding groove, key exclusively on it, and narrow its search image to such a degree that it ignores all other food. Even so, this is only our interpretation of what's going on, although most of the time what's really being masked is the quality of our presentation" - Bob Wyatt from What Trout Want: The Educated Trout And Other Myths
Sylvester Nemes changed my fly fishing decades ago with his book The Soft Hackled Fly and Bob Wyatt did the same thing with What Trout Want:The Educated Trout And Other Myths. The Nemes book is appealing because it reduces fly fishing to an elemental form where equipment takes a backseat to presentation while the Wyatt book explodes the BS about the dogma that has enveloped our sport. You don't need the hottest new rod and 10x to catch a fish that will just as soon hit a Blob Fly (don't get me going on this!!)
Wyatt observed something in a rise form that changed everything and that is that trout don't prefer the adult dry but will almost always take the stuck-in-the-film emerger. We've seen it many times: the air is full of mayflies that are in the dun stage and there is a steady parade of hatched mayflies floating downstream BUT we see rises to what appears to be nothing. That's because it is easier for a rising trout to pick off a hapless emerger than a dun because duns can suddenly fly away.
Wyatt developed the SHE (snowshoe hare emerger) to mimic this stage of development. There is no tail on this fly and it uses a Klinkhamer style hook that allows the fly body to ride below the surface while the snowshoe hair floats the front of the fly. The fly above is a Wyatt SHE tied as a size 20. BTW, snowshoe hair floats better than deer hair and floats better and is more durable than CDC. Also you can skip the dainty parachute hackle and just dust this with floatant.
I'll have plenty of these in sizes 18 and 20 when I hit the Millers and the EB this Fall (BWO season!)
The Flows
The Millers is at 1510 as I write which is down about a 1000 cfs in the last 48 hours. Still too high but watch the gauge and watch the forecast which predicts about .8 inches of rain through Wednesday.
The EB has dropped a lot in the last 48 hours from 1200 to 534 cfs and I'm itching to get out there. The predicted rain may not be enough to ruin this river and next weekend should be perfect especially if it gets a Fall stocking as planned.
The Ware is up at 438 cfs and I'd like to see 250 or lower. That may not be out of the question by Thursday.
The Swift - The number of Connecticut plates parked at the Swift this weekend told the tale of what happened to the Farmie. 1200 cfs drove some of those tailwater addicts to the Swift for something resembling "fine and far off" fly fishing. The Swift was true to form at a placid 51 cfs.
Book October
It seems that I book trips about two or so weeks in advance. There will always be some who will book two to three weeks ahead and they always get their day. Others wait until a few days before and seldom get their day. I have good slots open in October. Contact me for a trip!!
An Extra Thought
I have heard that the Blob Fly, which looks like salmon spawn from Saturn, has been banned from fly fishing competitions. I have a better idea. Don't ban the poor dumb fly but instead ban competitive fly fishing!!!!!
