The Millers And It's Smallies

 "The fish bite twice a day - just before we get there and just after we leave" - Unknown

The Millers is a great smallmouth River and anyone who has been there can vouch for that.  Lots of "Snapper" bass in the 6 to 8 inch range are always willing to do battle with you but you may be looking for something more.  If you want larger smallies you have to ditch your trout flies and go with something bigger and heavier to get down to where these fish live. Here are a few tales of some encounters with big bass on the Millers.

The photo above is of a women I guided one hot, humid June day.  The scene is at the Bridge Street Pool in Erving and I set her up with (you guessed it) a size 10 black wooley bugger which is simply a great fly. It had a weighted body to get it down to the depths of that pool and it worked because after a 10 minute battle she cradled and released a 15 inch smallie. BTW, this pool gave up the largest SMB I've seen on the Millers that tipped the scale at 4lb!!! The hardware fisher had a single hook lure and easily released that fish.

Let's go upstream to the Kempfield Pool (just downstream from where Whetestone Brook joins in) and I'm fishing a black Marabou Leech when something BIG smacks it and tears off downstream. There is no happy ending to this story because it threw the hook after a 10 second battle but not until it tore off about 50 feet of line off my reel.  A big brown??  I think it was a big smallie.

Now, let's wade upstream to the very head of this section.  There is a HUGE boulder near the middle of the river (you can't miss it) and across from that boulder is a series of large brown rocks.  I put a large, heavy stonefly nymph against one of those rocks and had a massive hit which took line from my reel as I ran after it.  There was a flyfisher fishing right at the bend in the river and he netted my fish.  Was it the mother of all Millers brown trout?  Nope, but a 16 inch smallmouth!!!!

Then there was the time when I was fishing just below the Holtshire Rd bridge to a steadily rising fish that was tucked right up against one of the bridge supports.  Nice brown I thought as it sipped in my comparadun.  Wrong again. It was a smallie of around 14 inches that went airbourne before running out of gas after a good run.

I've caught others in that river but these are etched in my memory just like the brutes I've lugged out of Wachusett Reservoir.

There are many mid sized rivers in eastern and central Ma that have smallmouth bass and are begging to be fished.

Ken

Thank You, A Very Good Fly And Relief From The Heat

"Remember, fairness is a human idea largely unknown in nature" - John Gierach

When I decided to take a break from this blog back in May I took the chance (in my mind) that the readership would disappear.  Not so!! Page views dropped a bit but not that much ( they must be reading the old stuff).  Page views are strong and so are the comments.  THANK YOU!!!!!!

Check out the fly above.  It's got bead chain eyes, a soft hackle collar, a dubbed body and a marabou tail. It's tied on a size 12 nymph hook and it imitates a dragon fly nymph, a crayfish, a stonefly nymph or a scalpin. Yvon Chouinard of Patagonian fame has caught bonefish on a pheasant tail.  This fly would do it too!!

Yes, the July heat and humidity sucked but it broke Saturday night which will put some life into our freestones but it also sent me to the kitchen to work up some pasta sauce which I have been avoiding because of the hot weather.

Cut up some garden zucchini, sautee in olive oil which some oinion, throw in some soy sauce, lots of black pepper and some diced tomatoes.  Cover with parmesan and have fun.

I'd like to take a trip to the Ware River to see if I can duplicate what happened 2 years ago. I went about a 1/2 mile upstream from the usual strting point and with a soft hackle fly took about a dozen CRAPPIE which was awesome!!!!!

Try It!

Ken

The Highs And Lows Of July

 

"Something to think about - If you fish the wrong fly long and hard enough it will sooner or later become the right fly"  - John Gierach

It's been a horrible July if you are a Northeast flyfisher but it's been a great July if you like to kayak which I don't. As I write the rivers are at this level:

Farmington at Riverton - 1170 cfs (too high)

Millers - 1910 (way too high)

Westfield - 1050 (too high)  wait until it's at 500

Ware - 318 (high but ok)

Swift - 48 cfs (absolutely perfect, for me anyway) Try to hit this river on week days and the earlier the better to avoid the kayak crowd. If weekends are your only option then get there VERY EARLY (before 8am) before the fishing is ruined.  You can always go above Route 9 but it gets crowded early.

I included the photo of the big brown just to remind you that the trout are still there.  Now, here's a question - does the Swift produce bigger browns than the Farmington?  I think yes. We know that it's a much better brookie fishery and a better bet for quality fishing while the Farmie is running high!!

Go Fish

Ken

What's Up?

 

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

So I decided to take some time off from what we like to call "flyfishing for trout" or what is more accuratley described as "flyfishing for dumb ass hatchery trout".  After 50+ years I have had it.  My fishing this year, and most of last year, has been for STREAM BORN fish and that has left me fishing the non-stocked "thin blue lines" when they have enough water to fish and the Swift River.  Wait a minute, the Swift is stocked dumb ass hatchery trout.  Yes, but where I fish it's all mostly NATIVE BROOKIES and that's what I want!!  My three best days on the Swift have produced 27 brookies (all of dries), 16 brookies and 15 brookies.  I have waded right past rising rainbows and just didn't care.  My opinion is that any stream that is stocked with clonebows is a degraded stream.  Those fish do not survive, for the most part, to make it to Labor Day. I just read an article where the DFW doesn't really know where their Swift River 'bows go even after all of the shocking surveys.  Note to DFW: Stop stocking the Swift with rainbows and protect the brookies and the monster browns.  (the same article stated that the goal of the DFW is to enhance the "put and take" fishery in this State - enough said!!!!)

 When rivers get low warm I switch to smallmouth which are a great fish and are always there to entertain!!  And yup, I've been chasing stripers with limited success but it's been fun!!!

Thanks for hanging on since May.  I haven't died and am still fishing and tying flies.  I actually feel like writing again.

Ken

My Tiny Flies

 

Pinheads

If you like to fish tailwaters like the Swift and the Farmington you will need the tiny flies that we like to call midges. Actually they can be Diptera (true flies), tiny Mayflies, tiny caddis flies, tiny aquatic worms and so on.  

Hot Spot

The sizes that I fish are in the 18 to 24 range.  I don't need to go down to the 28/30 range to catch these fish.  I may tie a small fly on a larger hook (28 fly on a 24 hook) which seems to fool them at times.

These flies are effective all year long, especially in the Winter although I've had great success on the Swift's Bubbler Arm on hot Summer days.

Both of these flies were invented on the Swift River!!

Ken 

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