The end of February

Yesterday's visit to this remarkable brook marks the end of my fishing in February.  A slow beginning gave way as the day progressed to fish enthusiastically taking small dry flies.  I thoroughly enjoyed fishing this stream with Alan and am going to miss it's sights and sounds for the next month and a half.  I can't wait to see this gem when spring arrives and the surrounding forest begins to green up.

I confess to having OCD in regard to this brook

With less than a week left to fish this brook before the season is closed until mid-April, I just had to return to it and continue to remove debris (and of course fish).  The day started very slowly, with no response to the Picket Pin in pools that had recently yielded fish.  Although I didn't measure the water temperature, my guess is that it was cool enough to slow down the residents.  As the sun rose I began to see insects hovering over the stream and in some pools fish began to rise.  Unfortunately, try as I might I couldn't get a taker with any of the dries that I tried (Ausable Bomber, Henryville Special, or Elk Hair Caddis), although the Bomber drew some attention a couple of times.  I returned to the Picket Pin and soon began to catch some fish.  I'm going to miss being able to fish this brook next month, so I may make up for it by returning when I can to continue with its maintenance.

After leaving the brook I met my family in Montville to go find Cochegan Rock, a boulder that is considered to be the largest glacial boulder in New England.  After getting permission from the Mohegan tribe (at the security office at Mohegan Sun Casino), we hiked on what is now tribal land to the site of this behemoth.  It is truly a large boulder sitting at the edge of a ridge.  It's quite an amazing site.

Incredible February weather

Alan and I hit the water yesterday to take advantage of the remarkable February weather.  At our second stop we were greeted by native brookies enthusiastically rising to dry flies (in my case an olive bodied elk hair caddis).  Alan has converted me to winter dry fly fishing and to mastering his technique of fishing dry flies from an upstream position.  BRK TRT has been a great influence and teacher.  I'll admit to being hooked on this approach, but by nature I'm still a streamer fisherman (the salt water influence).  In fact, the largest fish I caught was on a Picket Pin being drawn upstream as a streamer.  Unfortunately, the fish escaped at my feet while I was getting my camera out.  It's going to be a sad day when I return to work and am no longer capable of pretending to be retired and free to fish when I please.

Closer to home

In one of my previous posts I showed a beautiful brookie that I caught in a stream quite close to where I live (a 20 minute drive at most).  The stream flows into a cove on the Connecticut River and has some beautiful runs and pools that should, again in a perfect world, hold trout.  While there may be many more fish present in its waters than I am aware of, I have never caught more than one fish a visit, including today.  I tried a section of the brook upstream from where I have been in the past and had only one brief tussle, in spite of working what appeared to be some very nice water.  I then returned to the section that I had fished before and had the great fortune of catching the gorgeous brookie pictured below.  If you look to the right of its large tail in the first photo you'll see the fly that it jumped on, a Dark Edson Tiger.  The second picture is to try to give some indication of the size of the fish.  Once again it was the only catch of the day.  Native or hold-over, I do not know.  Either way it was well fed and beautiful.  In lieu of photos of fish I've included more of the stream and its surroundings.

A few streams visited today

I went roaming around today visiting a few of the streams that I normally fish.  At the first stream I was able to fool three nice native brookies with a Picket Pin (I got pics of only 2 though).  The stream was in need of an infusion of more water, as the level was getting noticeably low.

 

At the second brook, one that has never been kind to me, I was able to catch a young salmon.  Unfortunately the picture is out of focus (I was in a slightly precarious position and didn't pay attention to where the camera was focusing).  I don't know this stream well enough to say whether there are native fish present, but I have been told that there are and it is also stocked.  This is a beautiful stream that in my perfect world would support a population of native fish (one can dream).

The last stream is one that I have routinely caught wild brookies in where I go upstream and small browns at another section downstream.  The water was quite low today, but it didn't prevent this one brookie from attacking a Picket Pin.

Not a bad day roaming around.  However, we need rain to refill these streams and cheer up their residents.