Deerfield River, 6/21-22

**Dave** · 06-23-2008, 10:48 PM

Finally, after months and months I got to fish what I consider to be my "home river". I was particularly excited because I wanted to try so many new things that I've learned over the past year here.

This was in part a family trip to Western Mass, and so my parents joined in on the fun. I wanted them to have a lot of fun, so we began on Saturday afternoon with a kayak trip down the river (10 miles!). It was very fun, and something new, but I knew that my folks would enjoy the scenery. I had a ball, and learned some really awesome spots that I never knew about on the lower Deerfield. So I began fishing on Saturday evening at about 7:00. After so much anticipation, I wanted to try european nymphing techniques. I rigged up a cast of flies and after about 45-60 minutes, finally caught a 12' brown. After hearing about all the success from you guys, I thought I'd be reeling them in! ! ! But, I was not confident about my drift lengths, my weighted flies, tension, etc. So, in effect, each cast and drift was different from the last. After only catching a single fish after an hour, I rigged up my indicator nymph rig that I felt more comfortable with. Second drift, a fish. Third drift, another fish. That last hour of fishing was great, with a good amount of fish caught.

On the next morning, I continued indicator nymphing and really had consistency. Then, I rigged up the spey rod for some "extended area" fishing, and LOVED IT! I told Aaron this evening that I'm hooked on the spey rod. I got to some areas that I've dreamt of fishing for 10 YEARS! After some good success with that, I wanted another shot at the European nymphing. I tied up another leader with a cast of flies: a vladi worm on point, an Aaron Bomb, and a generic grey nymph. This time, I threw out less line, and really pulled the leader and flies through the drift. This was much different than my original approach the night before; trying to just keep the end of my fly line parallel with where I "thought" my leaders and flies were. Instead, this time I was aggressively holding my fly line off the water and my rod high while pulling the flies threw the drift. After about 8 or 10 minutes I caught the fish of the trip, a very strong brown that had not a blemish on him, caught in about 14'' of water. I've never seen anyone fish in this area due to the speed of the water, but I thought for that very reason that there may be a fish here. I fished the same bit of water and caught another rainbow two casts later. I moved a a few minutes after that and caught a 15' rainbow. I caught only another fish or two using the new system, but I realize that I was experimenting and that much of my rig and approach had to change. That was the last hour of fishing, then headed home.

The Deerfield is flowing very low these days. This year they are releasing 2 hours instead of 6! A huge difference. I got to fish with my father, who fishes so little, but likes it so much. I tried to coach him with the fly rod, and he caught a rainbow and hooked another really, really nice one! It jumped about 2 feet in the air and looked over 15'' to my eyes. It broke off, but the fight was worth it.

I caught a lot more fish indicator nymphing than euro-style, but I'm a real novice (or even pre-novice) of the european nymphing. I finally confirmed my love for the spey rod this weekend, and that was great fun.

I drove by the Millers River and it looked deathfully low. This is terrible for the time of year. I fear for anything that's still alive in there with the high water temps.

Thanks to Aaron and Alain for giving me some advice for my experimentation with this new technique, and also to Loren and Davy for their continued contributions here. And I will not forget to mention Nymphmeister's Czech list. Thanks

On a whole, the Deerfield produced an even number of browns and rainbows, although they were generally smaller than previous years. There was not one single brookie caught. . that's a first.

alanb_ct · 06-24-2008, 07:35 AM

Dave, please remind me about your spey setup. What rod, reel, line? Thanks.

**Dave** · 06-25-2008, 08:54 AM

Alain, I was using Aaron's 12.5' 6wt. Winston with the lightspeed. I really had a great with it, and I look forward to getting into this type of casting/fishing more.

FK · 06-25-2008, 09:56 AM

Dr. Dave,

Great report , thanks for posting.

Your day was really versatile nymphing, you caught fish on all of the systems tested.

I just received a neat Sage DH rod that will be used this weekend for Euro style nymphing. It is the discontinued Sage 5120-4, 12ft 5wt in the softer traditional action. It is marked "demo" and is still in mint condition, cork not dirty and hardly used. This rod was manuf. from about 2003 and was discontinued when the Z-Axis was introduced last year.

I fished it once on the Housatonic with a Rio Skagit 350gr line,,,,,this weekend it will be set up with the Cortland Deep Nymph line (0.022 dia level line) and the long leader system from the Versatile Nymphing Clinic by Loren. A 12-14" smallmouth will make the rod bend considerably and did not over power the smaller fish.

The rod balances perfectly at the upper cork end for single hand casting with an old Lamson LP-5 reel. It is softer than my preference for DH casting however, this is a matter of adjusting the casting stroke and timing.

If this rod is comfortable, I may just bypass the 10ft rods for nymphing.

Regards,
FK