Spring On The Swift - Day 1

SPRING starts now, not in five days! At least that's my feeling as I head out for the Swift this week. The rains of the weekend continued into today. Even though the river has risen over the last forty eight hours from about 140 to 190cfs it is still fishable below rt9. I made it to the pipe at 10am and had the place to myself. I took six small 'bows, four on a weighted scud and two on a serendipity and would have been content to stay more than the 1 1/2 hours that I was there if it wasn't for the flush of debris that came flying through the pipe. Tons of pine needles and leaves made drifting a fly impossible. So off to the Y Pool I went. At the bubbler arm I met Ryan and Reed who were drifting that skinny water and catching fish. I got into the act with a hotspots and jailbirds in size 18 bringing in another six. The fish here are larger than what I've been catching at the pipe but a lot harder to fool. They know you are there!!

I caught the hatchery staff in the act of loading their stocking truck or at least that's what I think they were doing. It wouldn't be long now.

Sunday presentation at Charlie Shaden's Fly Shop was a blast. Lots of fly folks. At times it seemed like a Blog reunion!!

Ken

Indicators - A Second Look

Ok, I don't like indicators and seldom, if ever, use them but a little web browsing brought this to my attention. I've heard of using cdc feathers but I can say that I've never seen them used by anyone. Everyone on the Swift uses balsa, cork, foam and yarn (I hate yarn) and the trees are full of them. This web article talked about how trout in certain heavily fished streams are becoming shy of these day glow bobbers BUT are not wary of cdc. It's a feather and looks natural. Ok, I took the bait (sorry for using that term), deciding to put on the "training wheels" (sorry again, I saw the term and it sounded funny) and worked up a feather indicator to use today if I could force myself to do it. I took three WHITE (no bright colors, it had to be natural) cdc feathers and tied them to a six inch piece of 3x tippet. I cut off the tag end leaving about four inches of leader material. I then attached the remaining tippet end to my leader a few feet up from the #14 fly that I intended to use. The "indicator" was positioned about a 1/2 inch from my leader. Here's what happened. The cdc rig didn't hit the surface with the customary "plop" one sees with the usual materials but nestled gently onto the water surface like, well, a feather!! The fly and the micro-shot didn't pull the indicator under. Only the trout did!! These stupid feathers floated like hell and looked TOTALLY NATURAL. I was able to adjust the depth by moving the knot up or down. It worked very well. I took five in the pipe section under crowded conditions.

Now, does this mean that I've sold my soul to indicators? The answer is NO. I will continue to fish "commando style" going forward BUT on those certain days when the sun warms the early morning water and the trout start to move around in mid current I'll have a few of these "rigs" to possibily save the day.

Don't get any goofy ideas that cdc will work with a heavily weighted, size 6 stonefly. It's a "little" fly rig. Also, at the end of the day you can pull the feathers off the leader attachment and toss them into the air. You're not littering. They're only feathers!!!

Ken

Late Winter Or Early Spring On The Swift

One has to make hay while the sun shines or at least when the temperature is in the lower 40's and it's not snowing. I had the pipe section pretty much to myself for about two hours except for the last hour when I fished with two regulars, Art and Dan. The place "seemed" pretty dead until we were graced with the "hatchery hatch", the flush of old pellets and other things that flowed via the pipe. The place came alive with dozens of trout working the surface. This "hatch" resulted in zero fish. I took three before this event. Two on a red serendipity and a dark brown on a quill bodied nymph tied on a scud hook. I've had quill bodies on the brain for a month so catching this fish was fun.

I tried a new (for me, anyway) approach to fishing the "tree pool". I went in from the pipe side and worked my way down against the steep bank. It gave the fly a nice drift and I think that the trout were not expecting that presentation. It worked!!

15 more days until SPRING!!

The EB at Charlie's Evening Sun Fly Shop!!

So, what have I been doing for the last month? TYING FLIES!!!!! I've left the Swift River alone and not really by choice since I had some vacation time and some personal matters to deal with over the past month which have sucked up the weekend hours. If it were June I'd have hours of evening fishing to write about but February will put the damper on that. Anyway, I love the time at the vise and have a lot of patterns (dry, of course) to try out during those great months starting in May.

Now, if you would like to get to know the East Branch of the Westfield River then show up at the EVENING SUN FLY SHOP at 11:30 on Sunday, March 14th. I'll be doing a slide presentation that can be best labeled as a QUICK AND DIRTY GUIDE TO THE BEST SPOTS on this river. If you've had limited experience on this stream this presentation will save you a lot of time. Locations, methods and flies will all be discussed. And if we have time (I'll make time) I'll do the Millers presentation again! I've really enjoyed these get togethers and I'm looking forward to this one.

Check the link on this blog for the EVENING SUN FLY SHOP for directions. Charlie Shaden runs the best fly shop in the Northeast!! I highly recommend it for all of your fly fishing needs! I bought my best rod from Charlie!!

The above fly is a cdc March Brown spinner. It floats like a cork!!! I'm working my comparaduns over from deerhair to cdc. It gives a nice profile, floats really well in all types of water and is easier to tie in smaller sizes.

The temperature hit 48 degrees today!!!! I've got the fever!!!!!!

A Reliable Caddis Emerger

I have a few caddis emerger patterns that I've used throughout the years and they range from soft hackle styles to my wet fly version on the Moby Dick but this fly deserves some attention. Back cast 20 years ago to an evening on the Deerfield where the Cold River empties into the Deerfield. I'm fishing this pool with an old Millers friend, Rick Flamatti, and he is nailing one trout after another. He says he has a caddis emerger on and so do I BUT the results were night and day. My fly catches one, his fly catches many more. Finally he shows me the pattern and since that night I've kept a few, in different colors, with me. It looks very much like Tom Ames Caddis Emerger which it probably is but this fly predates his book and I thank Rick for it.

Tie it like this:

Hook - size 12-14 scud hook (wet or dry fly hooks work too)
Body - fuzzy gray or fuzzy tan depending on what's hatching
Hackle - dark partridge tied sparse behind the head
Head - I like ostrich either in in black or dark brown. Just two or three turns.

This fly works great just under the surface in choppy water.

It's a great fly and we should be using it in about three months which right now seems like years away!!

Ken

Sunday Morning On The Upper Swift

Maybe that week in Jamaica has made me soft. I kind of liked the sunny skies and temperatures in the low 80's. Maybe that's why I slept in and then went out for a leisurely breakfast instead of hitting the Swift at 8am. I did hit the Swift at 10am to check out the Y Pool area. I didn't have the time to fish due to some obligations. Just enough time to take some photos. There were some fish caught in the 45 minutes that I was there above the Y and at the Y. I was asked what I was doing out of uniform. I had to ask myself that when I saw that repeat riser!!!

I hope to get out later this week. Until then.....

Quill Bodies And a Word On Wings

I almost went to the Swift this past Sunday morning but decided that it would be more fun to drink coffee and tie flies instead. It also gave me a chance to work up some quill bodies. These were in my arsenal 30 years ago but were gradually replaced by dubbed bodies and not because fur bodies were any better. They were just easier to deal with. Quills, on the other hand, had to be prepared and conditioned. This was something that I never liked to do and when it was time to tie some up I usually just grabbed a hackle feather, stripped the fibers off it and then broke it in two when I tried to wind it on the hook. But when things went right you had a beautiful fly body!!! I realize now that getting that result was worth the prep work.

Good, old, cheap, Chinese and Indian necks are the best source for quills. Rip a couple of dozen hackle feathers off the neck and begin to strip off the fibers. DON'T SOAK THEM IN A BLEACH SOLUTION to remove the fibers Bleach will weaken the stem. Take a dozen stripped stems of one color and fasten them together with a paper clip and dump the bundle into a glass of warm water for a few hours. After soaking take out the quill bundle and put it in a zip lock bag. They'll stay soft and pliable for a long time.

The above photos show (poorly) some dun variants with their signature bodies. In the group are a couple of quill bodied comparaduns with CDC instead of deer hair. Can't wait to use them!!

Wings - I'm reading a 100 year old classic, The Dry Fly And Fast Water by George LaBranche where the author examines the value of wings on hackled flies. This is an age old question. My feelings are: 1. Wings on hackled dry flies are for the fisherman, not the trout. 2. Hackle imitates the silky, gossamer quality of a mayflies wings much better than woodduck, mallard, hackle tips, etc. In fact, hackle is perfect for imitating spinner wings and is much better than those dreadful, water absorbing, leader twisting hackle tips!!!

If there is one feather that matches the qualities and likeness of mayfly wings it's CDC. They're light, come in all the right colors and float like a cork. All my BWO's are tied with it.

There's a big storm coming tomorrow night. There's only a month of this winter left (hopefully).

Maybe I'll hit the Swift Saturday morning (maybe).

Ken