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The Hatch Guide For New
England Streams is a new book by Thomas Ames Jr. This is the first
book of its kind to focus solely on insects from this area. Filled with
great photography, this book is a must have. |
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UpCountry Sportfishing Phone: Email:
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Fish Stories You are welcome to submit your own adventures for publication by sending them to our email. To start things off, here is a story by our own Don Butler (aka The Fish Fox). You may find Don working behind the counter at UpCountry or in the river guiding one of our clients. This story was originally published in the now defunct magazine "Heading Out" in May of 1989.
Don't Bore the Trout by The Fish Fox ZZZZZZZZZZ!! Sweet reel noise. The brown had strength and size. I almost lost him when he scooted behind a hassock sized rock but I held the eight foot graphite as high as I could until he tried another tactic. ZZZZZZZZZZZ another run. This time downstream. If he got into the white water at the tail of the pool he was long gone. Luckily, he stopped just short. Now a Mexican standoff. I put as much pressure on the light tippet as I dared, and ever so slowly with a few head shakes he yielded into the net and he became a she and an eyed 17 inches became a measured 15. Nice Fish! A Housatonic brown trout. As I released her, thoughts of a twenty fish morning passed between my ears. That was the third fish in five casts. It was my second year of dry fly fishing and I had finally "matched the hatch" with one of my own tied creations. "Ephemerella Comuta" I think is the Latin for "The Mayfly", that was abundantly floating down "Two Car Pool" (it gets its name from the number of autos you can park in the space near it). I had noticed the fly two days before and had agonized over my vise deciding on a dubbing color (olive, olive brown, olive with a little yellow mixed in, etc.) and a length of tail ( the standard blue-winged olive pattern calls for a tail as long as the hook shank but these looked longer). Hatch-matching was what all the great fishermen did; The Wulffs, the LaFontaines, the Marinos. Now it was my time. I had the "Perfect" fly. What's going on? Cast. No. Cast. No. Good float, no drag, right over the sucker! Notta, Niet, a donut hole. I looked around the pool to see how the other fly guys were doing. Fish were rising everywhere. A smallish gentleman just upstream from me was into a fish. His pipe jammed between his teeth and rod tip held high. The pleasant June weather and spectacular hatch had brought out every fly rodder in the area from the "Corner Pool" all the way up to " Push Em Up". There was graphite and cane bending. The parking space at "Two Car" had four cars and another five or six across Route 7. Crowded conditions and no room to move. So I was "stuck" with the dozen browns in front of me. Cast, drift, no, cast, drift, no, cast, drift, No! From time to time I checked on my upstream neighbor, he was either playing a fish or playing with his pipe. A half hour passed. My frustration grew. My forearm was tired but still I cast. " Your Borenem! " " What? " " Your boring the fish. " It was the fellow to my left. A gnome of a man, more waders than person. The nine foot rod he used looked like a flagpole by comparison. "These No-Kill fish aren't skittish so they'll keep feeding even after you tried to beat them to death with your fly line. By this time they know how many wraps of silk you put around the wing of that fly and what your brand of head cement is." He reloaded his pipe and really got into it. "Try acting like a bird. An osprey today would be out of the question with the mass of humanity that's out here. You can't move up and down the river looking for targets of opportunity. Now a Great Blue Heron is another matter. He waits. When he does move it is for a purpose. You think I like smoking this nasty old pipe? Bull, it gives me something to do with my hands, and it keeps me from casting too much. Today be a heron. Wait. Watch, and don't bore the fish." With that he put the nine footer in action and laid a perfect cast slightly up river and struck the fine brown that came up to his offering. Sermon and example So I changed my tippet, counted my flies, cleaned my line, and tried to do the long legged bird bit. After what seemed an hour I cast again. With no hesitation the FISH OF THE DAY came up and slammed the fly. ZZZZZZZZZZZZ. Thank God he didn't know about going down stream. An honest 18 incher and maybe 3lbs. As I held him in the current prior to release, my eyes met the old timer, and I said "Thank You". "Your entirely welcome." I had the impression he got a bigger kick out of that fish than I did. About that time the C.L. & P. decided to raise the water level and we had to leave the water. The lesson was learned. Since that day I've taken notice of the better fishermen at both the Housatonic and the Farmington. Ed Eveleth of the Wilderness Shop in Litchfield, is definitely an osprey type. He's all over the river, especially the other side of the Housatonic. The first time I saw him fishing the wrong side of the river after the water came up he scared the Hell out of me. With that hair and beard walking "on" the water to get back to his car was too much. In reality he knew where the rocks were. Pete "White Hat" Forte is another osprey. Pete of the two weight rod, 8x leaders and #28 flies. Lord does this man catch fish. He throws in a little blue heron in his movements and makes short accurate casts that are more than productive. "Waterbury Wide" is for sure a blue heron with a difference. He's a fly changer. From Dun to Spinner, from Emerger to Terrestrials. "Go lighter, go darker, up a hook size, down a hook size" he says. As for myself, since that memorable day four years ago, I've tried never again to be accused of "Borenum". The No-Kill areas of the Housatonic, Farmington, and Willamantic, are working. There's always fish to fish to, and where there's fish, there's fishermen. Start by trying to "match the hatch". Then be an osprey if its too crowed to be a blue heron. Use that non-hatching "Royal Coachman", try a "Renegade". Go from Mayfly to Caddis. The two volumes of the Orvis Fly Pattern Books list at least 150 different dry fly recipes. Multiply that by four or five hook sizes and you can see the assortment is limitless. You won't bore the fish, and more important, you won't bore yourself. ***********
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