Saturday at the Swift

Went up to the swift with Billy, Ted and Steve.  The modified hot spot was the ticket followed by a small green hairs ear.  Most fish were taken on the hot spot largest being a nice rainbow by the old dam down below rt 9.  A bunch of brookies are there and the fishing is good for them.  Highlight of the trip was Steve getting his first trout on a fly using a setup I tied on for him.  I tied up a few more of the fly in a couple of variations to see what the trout like best.  I will have to be back to test those patterns.

Miller's river

SKUNKED!!! Enough said. I tried everything under the sun. Soft hackles in pink, orange, yellow, bead headed pheasant tails in 10 and 16, green caddis, red caddis, etc.   Nothing. Fished in the morning from 6 till 8:30 then headed home.

East Branch

Got out to fish with Billy on the East Branch on Saturday 19th for the evening hatch.  What a nice river.  WE went to the gorge area and parked the Prius at the entrance and took his truck down the access road - Thank goodness as I'm not sure the Prius would have made it all the way down the road.  Caught a couple of rainbows and a brown.  I was trying for a brookie as Billy said he caught one earlier and it would have been neat to catch the trout trifecta on a different river.  All but one of the fish came on soft hackles.  The rown came to a fire orange soft hackle which he took with him when he was released as I could not for the life of me get the hook out of the fishes mouth.  I turned and lost another fish in the same hole using an yellow soft hackle as well.  I then decided to start nymphing seeing as I had already caught a fish on a soft hackle. I have been playing with these flies all spring and still can't quite get the feel for the down and across movement of them so I have been fishing them up and down in the stream.  This seems to work well for me. The next fish taken was a nice rainbow on a red bead caddis.  The bow was located just where you would have expected him to be, right in the feeding seem. After that things went quite for a while.  Finally I tied on a small caddis bead head in copper color with a pink soft hackle as the trailer.  Nothing for the longest time.  So Billy and I decided to try some new water as he was not seeing many fish either.  He is still learning the river so we drove down to a nice looking area and waded in.  Working up stream I found a nice seem that looked productive but could not rise a fish.  Working my way further up stream I was on another nice seem just as darkness was approaching.  Suddenly the fish turned on.  It seemed like every other cast I was hooking into a fish.  In a span of about 10 min I had brought 4 rainbows to hand some of them giving quite the aerial display.  AMAZINGLY all of them were caught on the PINK soft hackle!!! Go figure.  I tied the fly on just to tell Meg I fished it and it was the winner for the day.  Got back to the car at 9:30 and was home by 11.  All in all a nice time on the river.  Now I need to tie up some more soft hackles for a repeat on this river.

Something Different 7/11

Well since the trout season in MA is basically over and to have some fun with my cousins we headed north to fish the salmon river in NY for small mouth bass.  This was a kayak trip with Gordie something I have never done.  It was fun with a couple of fish caught by Brian and I.  Joe did not have as good of a time as he was using his fly rod and was having trouble convincing the fish they should be biting what he was throwing. The river was running 185cfs and that was MUCH to low as I sent allot of time bumping my butt on the rocks.  Hopefully next year there will be some more water in the river.  

Tues at the Q

Well back to home waters.  The river has started to reach summer form...  decided to look at some newish water today and headed down stream from the pool.  picked up a nice healthy little brook trout on a light cahill nymph followed that up with a couple of dace.  After working my way down to the footbridge pool with no big fish to show for the effort I fished the run for a little while.  Managed to turn one fish in the slough probably also on the cahill.  In an effort to get back on that fish I switched to a partridge and yellow that I had tied.  This brought nothing to hand - perhaps something that is lighter would have been better served.  Regardless the river seemed to go to sleep around 8:00.  Might have to start fishing earlier in order to find actively feeding trout.

River 20 CFS; 64 F at 6:00 am

New water

Decided to head to some new water today. While fishing the quinnie has been fun I feel like I'm starting to know the fish by name.  Do I decided to try the Miller's.   This would be my second trip to the river having been on it last year once as well.  I decided to fish the bear's run area. This is a big river or at least much bigger then I'm used to. 

While I'm still learning this river I don't really expect to catch much.  Having gotten a river guide it helps but you still have to read water and drift correctly. I managed 1 brown trout my fish on this river he came from an inside seam on a curved bead head pheasant tail nymph. 

He was on the inside seam of a run and the nymph needed some tungsten help getting down.  I followed that up with about 1/2 a dozen dace the largest going around 8 inches.  Walking out I spoke with another angler who was swinging wets.  He had better luck then I scoring 2 browns and a rainbow n. Claimed the hot fly was a partridge and orange.  I had tried a yellow with nothing to show and the other angler echoed my experience. Go figure.  I had that in my vest and opted NOT to tie it on.  I will probably try and make another trip some time soon to explore the area some more.

River 55cfs; 67F

Fri Q trip

The quinnie is starting to heat up.  Not the fishing mind you but the river itself.  The levels are starting to really drop and the fish are starting to get holed up.  The diet has also changed.  Running some soft hackles up the river this AM there was not a single dace was even interested.  Odd to say the least.  Turns out the river dynamic might has changed.  Tying on a caddis nymph followed by a light hendrickson nymph yielded much better results.  The dace were now active and a rainbow liked the caddis.  Both are much smaller than what had been working but there was no denying they were what the fish wanted.  Go figure.....all told the tally for the day was a single rainbow trout and 8-10 dace.  If I had a little more time I think the change in the flies would have produced many more fish.