2015 Top Twelve Days on the Water

-- First fish of 2016 --

I'll open this long overdue post with the first fish of 2016. A sweet native Massachusetts brookie from a stream with no name. We are now three months into 2016, but I'd like to look back on a personally successful 2015 fly fishing New England waters.

I use the phrase "occasional blogger" in my Instagram profile for a reason. It's hard to provide relevant content to the blog on a regular basis. It's been 11 months since the last post and I hope you'll enjoy this one.

New England Spring Float with Harrison Anglers

-- Harrison Anglers --

To some, the 2014-2015 New England winter was brutal. For me, it was just another beautiful, snow filled wonderland that is rapidly changing into a glorious spring. This is the reason I love New England. Seasonal changes in New England are rapid and intense. Deep snow is morphed into blooming forsythia and the fish in both fresh and salt put on the feed bags.

Nine years ago, my son Matt, bought me a fly rod for Christmas. Six years ago, Matt convinced me to float a Western Massachusetts river with Harrison Anglers. Before that float, I had caught a few bass and bluegills on the fly, but salmonids continued to elude me. Tom Harrison, our guide on that float, put us on fish and I caught my first trout that day on an olive woolly bugger. I didn't know what I was doing then and probably forgot to tip (sorry Tom), but it was a memorable day. Thanks to Tom's patience and guidance, all aspects of my fly fishing game improved and I started having success with catching trout.

The Meadows Project

-- The Meadows Project --

I came across an interesting feed on Instagram about a month ago called The Meadows Project. Exploring a bit deeper, I discovered the group is based in Southern Vermont and are putting together some stunning video about cold water river conservation and the fly fishing history of the region.

Here's an excerpt from their website.

"THE MEADOWS PROJECT is a pursuit for the protection of Southern Vermont's cold water fisheries and the native brook trout that reside in them. Originally, a collaboration of art, the project has evolved into not only a conservation effort but also an internet based television program detailing three trout anglers journey through the fishing season. the series covers fishing techniques, quirky anecdotes, and up-to-date news about all of the project's conservation and preservation efforts. Tune into Vimeo to watch and Instagram for day to day news."

3rd Annual FlyFishingNewEngland.net Fly Swap

-- 3rd Annual FFNE Fly Swap --

The tradition continues. After finding Ryan's board three years ago, signing up for the 1st FFNE Fly Swap and meeting a bunch of great local fly anglers, I look forward to this winter event every year.

The highlight of the swap this year came from our host, Matt, who recently has ventured in to the world of tying classic salmon flies. Matt consistently produces killer, big meaty, pike and bass flies, but wanted to explore the deep and beautiful realm of the salmon fly. As one of the most creative tiers I know, Matt knocked out 11 unique patterns for each swap participant and himself based on stories shared on the FlyFishingNewEngland.net board.

5 Months

-- Bookends of a Skunk --

That's how long I waited to feel another fish on the end of the fly line. In the eight years of active fly fishing, I've never had a skunk that long. Would like to blame it on the brutal New England winter or lack of time on the water, but for whatever the reason, I'm calling the 5 month skunk over.

The Winter Solstice post last December was the last time I had a fish on the line. I've been out plenty of times -- chasing trout, bass, gills, carp and stripers -- but no luck for 5 long months.

#theartofskunk

-- First 2014 Outing --

It's been a very long, cold winter here in New England and most other parts of the country. In the seven plus years I've been fly fishing, I don't remember the local streams being as frozen over and unfishable as they have this winter.

With Matt (aka Troutdoors) home for spring break, our first order business was to get out to the river and wet a line. We checked flows and they were rising so we knew the spring thaw had finally started.

The title of this post, #theartofskunk, comes from Ariel over at Atom Fly Fishing, who coined this hashtag about 2 years ago. It's become an unfortunate label to many of my Instagram posts, so if you looking for some fish porn in this blog post, leave now.

Bacon Wrapped Jalapenos and a Fly Swap

 -- Fly Fish New England Fly Swap -- 

I joined the Fly Fishing New England board a little over a year ago and am really enjoying the great local knowledge and camaraderie. Right after joining, I was able to get into the board's first fly swap and wrote a post about it.

The best part about this fly swap is that it's local and our host, Matt, brews some excellent beer. Last year, in addition to swapping flies, drinking beers and getting to know everyone, I brought some bacon wrapped jalapenos (BWJs). The BWJs were a big hit. Well, as the December winter froze over all the local streams and cabin fever sets in, posts on the board started up about "When is the next fly swap?" When the date got set for 1 February and the theme of fly swap was "your most productive fly", discussions about the BWJs also surfaced. A tradition is born.

3 Days, 2 Hatches, 1 Town, Roscoe

-- Fly Fishing in Roscoe, NY --

Matt, Michael and Mike are at it again -- this time on the Beaverkill River in Roscoe, NY.

The boys and Michael's Dad spent their school break fly fishing in the Catskill region of New York. Roscoe or "Trout Town, USA" had some great early season action with prolific caddis and Hendrickson hatches.


Red & blue quills, Hendricksons and caddis dries were the ticket.

Matt put together another "Troutdoors Productions" video to share their adventure.

3 Days, 2 Hatches, 1 Town, Roscoe from Troutdoors on Vimeo.

Enjoy the fish and dry fly action.

Instagram Fly Swap -- Part 2A

-- Graphics by @phishtitz --

Here's a follow-up post about the First Instragram Fly Swap. Of the original 9 participants, we have 5 that completed their flies, 1 that dropped out and 3 that plan to finish up in the coming weeks. Instead of waiting, Morgan, our host, distributed the first set of flies. These are shown below with tying instructions here. This will be a long post, so let's get started.

@mkupfer32 Flies

Our swap host, @mkupfer32, of the blog "Tight Lined Tales of a Fly Fisherman tied the MK Caddis Dry (center) & Glass Caddis Pupa (lower left) for trout, and the Bass Gurgler Popper (upper right) & B-Ass Clouser Streamer (upper left) for bass. I believe these are all original creations by Morgan.

Instagram Fly Swap -- Part 1

-- Taking over the Dining Room --

It's been about two months since my last post for no other reason than not having much news or good fish porn that warrants blog space. It was unseasonably warm in New England in November and December, so we were able to get out to the local streams, but no fish were brought to hand. The temps have finally settled into the normal range for this time of year (5 degrees F this morning), so my attention has turned to fly tying and, with another good cold week, ice fishing. I'll save the ice fishing story for a future post.

The Christmas tree came down, decorations and lights packed away and "occupy dining room" is in full swing. What really got the tying cranked up was getting involved with the first ever Instagram Fly Swap. 

Thankful

--Bushwacking in the Parker River Reservation--

When I started this blog, it was driven by a new found passion for fly fishing. There was no agenda then, and still now, other than to find a creative outlet to share and express my experiences with the sport.

Over time, I've discovered many others in this community (just look at the list of  "Stuff Followed" on the right) who also share the passion and love to write about their experiences as well.

I'm not as active as many in the fly fishing blogosphere and certainly cannot keep up with all the great content they publish, but still feel connected to a new community I was unaware of less than a year ago.

I've also found a fishing obsessed group on twitter that gets together every Tuesday at 7 PM MT (9 PM ET) under the hashtag of #Fishchat. #Fishchat is spirited group of dedicated anglers who post lots of great fish porn and offers sage advice.  I connected with @AncientAngler during a #Fishchat and learned he lived in my neck of the woods.

Charley (aka @AncientAngler) and I found a time to meet and fish together on a local trout stream just north of Boston last weekend. Neither of us had fished this area, but we were both up for an adventure on new water. Charley captured the adventure nicely on his blog titled Ancient Angler, so I won't repeat it here, but he is the first internet fishing friend that I've had the opportunity to fish with.

While we both agree this trip to the Parker was not an ideal fishing outing, we are glad to have met and are looking forward to future adventures together.

On this Thanksgiving Eve, I'm thankful for my family, our good health and new found fishing friends like Charley.

Wishing everyone a safe and peaceful Thanksgiving.

Mile High Fly -- The Movie

 -- Director and Cinematographer --

When I was a kid going on vacation, my dad would take hundreds of pictures with his Nikon cameras on Kodak Ektachrome film and create engaging, music synchronized slide shows with multiple projectors. He would spend weeks putting these shows together and finally, on that special night, we would file down to the finished basement, take a seat at the bar, grab a Coke and some popcorn, dim the lights and the show would begin. For the next twenty minutes, we would relive every waking moment of our vacation through the eyes of my father and his Nikon cameras.

While the slideshow would sometimes drag on, I fondly look back at these special family moments of gathering as a simple way to be together, to enjoy each other and laugh about the memories captured on film from our recent vacation.

Four months have passed since our wonderful Colorado vacation in and around Rocky Mountain National Park. In true spirit of the classic vacation slide show, my son and his friend have put together a great video recapping all the highlights of our trip.

Grab a Coke and some popcorn, pull up a seat at the bar, dim the lights and enjoy....



Special thanks to Flies & Fins for the soundtrack.

Wet Wadin'

-- Millers River upstream of Athol --

The summer solstice has passed and the local rivers are getting warm. A couple of days before the solstice, we traveled about an hour to the Millers River in central MA and shed the waders. The plan was to go in the afternoon and stay for the evening hatch. Our local Millers River expert, Ken Elmer, has told us that this is one of he best dry fly sections on the river but you need to hit it in the early morning and late evening. 

We arrived around 3 PM and started hiking upstream looking for some spots to wet the lines.  The boys hiked down to some still water to try their luck with dries and I started with a beadhead pheasant tail to explore the riffles and pocket water. 

-- Mountain Laurels in full bloom --

This section of the Millers is below the Bears Den and we fished the Bears Den a couple of times last year with mixed results.

-- The boys were getting bored not catching anything --

The boys hooked a couple of small bait fish on their dries and I was getting nada.  We continued to hike upstream and I continued to try nymphs and streamers.

The sage advice of Mr. Elmer was playing out "early morning and late evening". We were there from 3 to 6 with nothing to net. That's probably why we were the only guys fishing this stretch at this time.

We hiked back to the car, and went for some pizza in downtown Athol. Every small town in Massachusetts has a "Small Town Name" House of Pizza and its been my experience when looking for fine local dining that you can't go wrong at the local House of Pizza brand.

After dinner, instead of going back to the prime evening hatch water where we just were, we decided to go downstream about 7 miles to an area on the Millers that we have fished several times and know a bit better. 

The Wendall Depot parking area had four other cars in the lot when we arrived at 7 PM. The simplicity of not dealing with waders and boots makes moving from one place to the next much easier.

We first went across the railroad bridge and started to work water downstream.  We ran into three other anglers fishing a decent section of the river in the C&R area.  I switched to dries and put on an X-Caddis.  With one of my first casts, a fish ripped the fly off the leader. It looked like I tied a bad knot, but I try to be very careful about these details and was pleasantly surprised to have found some fish. 

-- First trout of 2011 - an 8" rainbow --

The boys got into some small fallfish and I landed a tiny smallmouth on an olive Klinkhammer. We decided to move upstream before we lost too much light.  The boys bushwacked up to a big pool while I decided to work the riffles at the tail. I lobbed the Klinkhammer in to some fast water and after 169 days netted the first trout in 2011.

-- Decent smallie on Klinkhammer --

I moved upstream slowly to some rising fish just above the riffles and got into a decent smallmouth. One of the better fish that's been on my line in awhile. 

I continued to work upstream to find the boys who had got into some fish but could not land them. There was some good sized fish rising in the big pool and we were all working it hard.

-- Smallie with a bit of fight --

Just as the light was failing and the fish where getting really active on the surface, a beaver decided to let us know that this was his fishing turf and started to slap and submarine the pool spooking anything within a 400 ft radius.

We packed it in and started to head home just after 9 PM.  There was very little light left, but you gotta love long summer days with great fishing into the early evening.

MassWildlife

Stocked Brookie

My son, a junior in high school, participated in "Job Shadow Day" last week. The students search out companies and organizations for jobs that might interest them after school, make contact with an employee and "shadow" that employee during a typical work day.

My son is very interested in wildlife management and contacted the Massachusetts Department of Fish and Game for his job shadow. I dropped him off at the Northeast District Office at 8 AM.

We got a quick tour of the office and met the fish and game biologists.  They are just completing the spring stocking of the district's rivers and ponds.

After I left, my son traveled with the game biologist to a game check-in station. He was able to help with the measurement of a wild turkey brought in by a hunter. They travelled out to Plum Island, a coastal barrier island north of Boston, to monitor and count waterfowl that is part of an effort to protect their nesting sites.

His last stop was at a pond to meet a stocking truck. The guys in the truck left the district at 1 AM to drive to the Cape and pick up the fish at a hatchery and then drive them back to the ponds and rivers on their stocking schedule.



In addition to fish stocking and hunting management, much of their work involves monitoring and reporting on all things related to the health and well being of the fish and game in the district.  They cover a lot of territory with a very small staff.

Some of the reporting work helped with the creation of the Massachusetts BioMap2. This comprehensive biodiversity mapping of the natural resources in the state is a work of art. BioMap2 helps the state manage its natural resources and make sure that new developments don't damage the most fragile parts of the ecosystem.

Part of the planning and protection envolves strategic land acquisition. They recently acquired a 840 acre parcel of undeveloped land in Tolland that will help protect some of the Farmington River watershed. Last year, the Department of Fish and Game acquired 245 acres of land around Red Brook in Plymouth and Weymouth which will help protect and restore sea-run brook trout.

I have to applaud Mass Fish & Game on their forward thinking land management and planning to protect our natural resources.

Stuffed Trout with Bacon Wrap

Meanwhile back on the stocking pond, that brookie shown above was not doing very well in his new pond. He was plucked from the water, field dressed and handed to my son for dinner.

The stocking in this state is "put & take" -- meaning the state stocking program is for recreational fishing and the taking of fish from the stocked waters is allowed within a daily creel limit.

Overall, it was a great experience for him (and me). I appreciate the efforts of Mass Fish and Game which facilitate outdoor recreational opportunities today while conserving our natural resources for future generations .