Farmington River, morning of the last day of August 2007
http://i164.photobucket.com/albums/u...urv_brown1.jpg
http://i164.photobucket.com/albums/u...urv_brown2.jpg
I finally had a chance to fish this morning. I arrived at the river early to find lots of small sippers. I met a nice gentleman who warned me to "keep an eye out for the bears!" I didn't see them, but I guess two black bears have been frequenting the middle TMA.
Typical low water, late summer conditions, with an excellent Trico event! Lots and lots of small spinners coming out of the riffles. In 3 hours, I caught 7 fish in all, and missed a bunch more. I was shocked when I got the big brute above to sip a size 24 polywing Trico spinner (I had better luck with the white body/black thorax variety). It took me a while to bring him to net. What an outstanding example of the famed "survivor strain." I measured this fish at 20in, from the mark on my Brodin net. The fish was much thicker than my palm. Most of the other fish were 10-14in browns. I caught no salmon. Many of the browns have "beak marks" from the omnipresent mergansers.
By the way, I fished 5 and 6X the whole time, no problem. I love the George Harvey slack leader formula, what a perfect turnover with a small fly.
I was dismayed to see three dead fish this morning. Not sure if fish are being mishandled or stressed. I was especially sad to see this 12in wild brown dead on the bottom:
http://i164.photobucket.com/albums/u...ead_wildbr.jpg
I believe the brilliant red dots and long fins indicate a wild fish. The poor fish had a large snelled bait hook on heavy Maxima Chameleon in his gut.
Re: Farmington River, morning of the last day of August 2007
very nice big thick brown and thats bad that a 12 inch wild brown which would be amazing for NJ is on the bottom dead
Mike
Re: Farmington River, morning of the last day of August 2007
Alain... I have an idea of where all of those salmon parr are going! I think the ten inch stocked trout population is going to dwindle next!
Re: Farmington River, morning of the last day of August 2007
Beautiful pics. Can't wait to get to the Farmy soon! I can't wait to show that even first timers can catch dirty big fish there. It's a bogus river. ;) I'm only into wild trout now. ;D
