Another day at the Millers River. Trying to think like a stonefly.

It was a hot and humid day on Sunday so I chose a section of the Millers with a straight section running northeast to southwest.  This meant that the prevailing southwesterly breeze could provide me with some natural cooling as I fished for a couple of hours.

I started here and walked downstream

The water was lower than it had been on Friday and along the exposed rocks (not in view here) I could see the dried shucks left by emerged stoneflies.  I figured if I chose a dark fly about the same size at the shucks, that I would be into fish.

Stonefly shuck

One of my favorite flies is from a batch sent to me by Jim LaFevers of Texas.  He calls then Double Hackles.  I wrote about this pattern here and here and here.

"Double Hackle"

I did catch quite a number of smallies deep in the pool created by the back eddie seen in the near side of the first image above.  But most of the fish were up along the rocks of the near side, and for a hundred yards downstream.

Were they there waiting for stoneflies nymphs to migrate to the edge of the river?  Regardless, the olive double hackle did very well for me. It's a sturdy fly, too.  I caught perhaps two dozen smallies of the usual Millers River size (9-10") and the fly still looks as good as new.

This is a dark river, and the fish tend to be dark, too.

I also managed to snap a few photos of colorful flowers or interesting vegetation along the edge of the river, as I walked downstream.

Argh. I lost my only sample of the Dark Edson Tiger

In my last post I wrote about enjoying a bit of streamer fishing for trout on a couple of small NH streams, using a Dark Edson Tiger tied by my friend Paul. So, this past Friday I thought it might be nice to skip the office and head off to the Millers River for smallmouth bass fishing, again with the D/E/T tied to the end of my leader.

The Dark Edson Tiger was terrific.  I've always felt that yellow is a good color for bass, and on this day the D/E/T proved me right.

The smallies (that I catch anyway) on the Millers are not large.  Most are around 9-10"; but, they are strong fighters and good jumpers.  I enjoyed myself immensely.

But...

After perhaps a dozen bass I managed to lose not just my only Dark Edson Tiger, but my tippet and the first section of my leader, all on an underwater tangle of logs and branches.

Thankfully, reinforcements are on the way!  Paul has tied up a half dozen or so and mailed them to me.  They should be sitting on my desk at the office tomorrow.

The Millers River.  This is darker than normal,
due to heavy rain a couple of days prior.

The typical Millers' smallie is 9-10". There are buckets of them.

My best guess is that the smallies like the yellow color and the painted eyes of this Edson Tiger.
About 1 out of 3 smallies on the Millers are nearly black, like this 10-incher.

A nice day on the Miller's River

We need some rain in New England.  That's really hard for me to say, since we had so much snow this winter.  But water levels in the rivers are falling fast.  The section of the Miller's that I fished yesterday was ideal for wading, but any lower than it's current 200 cfs and many of my favorite spots will no longer be holding fish.

In a normal year, the level would be nicely down from many thousands of cfs to a manageable 600-650.  In a normal year, my fishing on the Miller's would just be beginning.  As it is, the river has been fishable for about three weeks.

The flies I used were weighted, and I fished deep.  Things were shallow enough that I used a floating line.

As I walked upstream with the same beadhead I reported on in my last post, and fished it under a foam indicator, I picked up several rainbows in fast water and a handful of smallmouth bass.  I was very happy, even before I turned around and fished downstream back to the car.

For something different than the typical early season black and olive woolly bugger (or similar weighted big fluffy fly), I put on a weighted yellow streamer.

I fabricated this a few years ago and don't have a name for it... yet.
10 wraps of thin lead under silver tinsel and copper rib.
Underwing: long calf tail material. Overwing: mallard
Collar:  I have no idea...  Well, maybe hen neck hackle.

I am not much of a streamer fisherman.  To be honest, I fished it the way I would fish a bugger.  Sometimes I would strip and sometimes I would let it swing.

I caught my two biggest fish this way.  The first was a 14 inch "chub".  Technically, I think it is a Fallfish.  To tell you the truth, they are pretty ugly.  But they are indigenous (I think), wild, stream-born fish, and they consequently have my respect.  I've seen fisherman on some smaller streams throw them up on the bank to die, as they represent competition for food these fishermen would rather have the stocked trout eat.  I'm not a fan of this. But I don't get bent out of shape about it, either.

The chub hit the streamer when it finished its swing below me and just in front of a boulder.  A very likely spot for a fish to hang out!

Note the bait hook stuck in the chub's jaw.  It was easily removed.

The second largest fish was a 12-13" rainbow.  In this case the water was deep, so I placed the streamer "up and across" and gave it slack until it was "down and across", to give it time to sink. I kept the line mended.  Then I began to tighten the line causing the streamer to rise and swing up.  That's when the trout hit it.

Thank you yellow streamer for a job well-done. BTW, I think that is 3x tippet.

Beautiful weather along the Millers River (Mass.)

Just before the extended heat wave we just finished here in New England, I got a chance for some mid-day fishing on the Millers River (July 12).  It had taken weeks for the river to get down to a reasonable flow because of heavy rains in June which had made it impossible to fish.  As you can see, on July 12 it was pretty awesome.

The smallies were abundant (and small).  I found fishing a foam popper behind the larger exposed rocks to be productive.  Swinging a peacock body nymph in a size 12 worked nicely too.

I'm looking forward to getting back on the river now that we can expect daily high temps to be in the 80's.  I expect the fish to be somewhat sluggish... like me.  Maybe after a day or two of this cooler weather they'll be active.  I hope some of the stocked trout made it through the warm weather.

First day out on the water

The weather here in New England has been absolutely gorgeous.  We need rain, but with day time temps in the mid-60s and nights in the upper-30's I am really happy. It's nearly the end of April, and the April showers never arrived.

It was a good ski season with more than the average amount of snow, so I am surprised to see water levels low along some of my favorite trout rivers and streams.

So... this week the skis went down into the basement and the fishing bag and gear got thrown into the back of my van. As I mentally went through my mental check list, I recalled how a couple of years ago I did the same thing; but I forgot either my waders or my boots.  Ever do that?

As it turned out I did much better this year for my first day out... I only forgot my wading staff.  Thankfully, the water was very manageable.  Attached to the wading staff is the holster and web belt.  So those items was forgotten at home, too.  But the leather belt in my blue jeans provided a satisfactory alternative.

Sunday was to be the day, so on Saturday I checked the water flow on the Miller's River one more time.  It was nearly perfect.



I fished my favorite section, a spot way downstream, nearly to where the Millers flows into the Connecticut River.  As has been the case for years, there were no fly fisherman there... though I did chat with a spin fisherman.  I managed to catch four hungry rainbows.  I wondered if they were holdovers, as they just seemed too thin for recent stockers.


One of my favorite sections.

This season's first trout, a thin, perhaps 11" rainbow.
Caught on a clipped peacock Woolly Worm, size 12.  It is also called a Wonder Bug.
The tippet is thick, at 3x, because it was very windy.

Clipped hackle peacock Woolly Worm, also called a Wonder Bug, with tail of turkey biots.
An underbody of 10 wraps of lead wire helped get this down deep, as did
casting upstream.  Yes, I do use a strike indicator.

I fished for about 3 hours, after which I decided to drive upstream and hang out at a couple of the bridges with access to the River, in search of conversation.

From the bridge in the center of Erving.
Do you see the fly fisher at the edge of the pool?
Just above the run in the foreground?

Also taken from the bridge in Erving.
Personally, I'd be nymphing in the fast water.



This final picture was taken from the bridge by Orcutt pool.  It was fun to lean over it and converse with a couple of fisherman, neither of which had had any luck. 

Taken from the bridge by Orcutt Pool.





Fall Fishing begins

On Sunday morning as the temperatures began to climb over 50F, I decided to take a drive to one of my "spots" on the Millers River in central Massachusetts to see if I could catch some of the newly stocked trout. Fresh stockies was my only hope for trout, as I figured there would be no hold-overs this season.  After all, to date this is the warmest year (January through September) in history, and also one of the driest summers in Massachusetts history.

Many of the bigger rivers in Massachusetts get stocked both in the Spring and again in the Fall. October often has some of the best fishing of the season.  June if good too, but in October the air is clean and clear, and there are few anglers.

On this day, however, I got skunked.  One small fallfish (around here we erroneously call them "chubs") was all I managed to catch.  Even the smallies avoided me. But it was still a beautiful day, and after walking for an hour in the water upstream I figured at the very least I had gotten my aerobic exercise for the day.

Too, I had my camera with me.  Actually, I had two cameras. The old Pentax water resistant one, as always, was in my vest.  I used it to take the picture of the submerged maple leaf.  And in the car I had one of my newer point-and-shoots, the Panasonic LX5, which took the other two pictures below. 

Hope you enjoy the photos: