Connecticut's Farmington River is known as a world class tailwater river, so you can be sure it's pressured hard. It's full of fish that don't yield. At least not in July. It's also located close to where my brother David lives in West Hartford. I don't remember when I started talking about the two of us fishing it this summer, but David spoke about the possibility of fishing together there sometime long before. I guess it was Easter at my other brother's house here in New Jersey when Rick expressed desire to fish with us, so we made that the plan. A couple of months ago, I suggested July 20th as a possibility. We refined the date a little so we'd be fishing on a weekday. Monday the 21st. Rick and I drove up Sunday.
A tailwater river is a stream that flows out of the bottom of a dammed reservoir. The water for miles below is always cool. We began fishing maybe nine miles below the dam. Somewhere down that way, we got a water temperature of 62. (Just below the dam, it's about 55.) Temperatures had reached the low 90s on Sunday.
We had got light takeout breakfasts and coffee, getting to the river before any sun was on the water. Rick managed to wade just a little below the bridge, but the boulders were big and the depth inconsistent. Wading further downstream where trout rose wasn't practicable. I didn't have any idea what they rose for, but I didn't think to ask my brothers, either. The scene bore an aura of mystery in the early morning lack of light as if I weren't fully awake yet, and I felt at loss for not attempting to wade, but I knew doing that was useless. As I remember, which isn't perfect, my boots stayed on dry land. We drove upstream, spending an hour-and-a-half or so in a stretch with a few series of riffles and flatter fast moving water about a quarter mile or so in total length, finding nothing deeper than our thighs, not finding any trout anywhere, although just as I was leaving to catch up with Dave and Rick waiting for me at Dave's truck, I saw a splash rise under trees. I had thought the spot looked inviting within the first five minutes we had fished the area. Rick and I fished it with stonefly wet fly/pheasant tail nymph dropper combinations. After Rick moved out and headed downriver, I got casts even closer to the bank, as if maybe trout hung back in shadow.
And maybe a few did. Although Rick got two hits on that combination of wet fly and nymph after we had driven on and he had worked his way upstream from where we next parked, that was all underwater presentations produced for us all day. I think of how eagerly California trout hit nymphs last summer and in April 2022, but those fish weren't nearly as pressured. Not even those of the South Fork Merced River. When we got to the Church Pool, we contended with four other anglers. A weekday flourish in July that probably is the usual. I watched one of the others catch a brown about 18 inches long, later learning that he used a floating ant, casting near the bank where you would think that fly might be effective.
Dave and Rick fished downstream in the same vicinity. Not only did Rick catch an 11-inch brown on a Hendrickson dry fly, he witnessed a big trout crashing the surface "like a bass going after bluegills." We understood big browns exist in the river, but no accounts could have impressed Rick of the fact more than witnessing that fish. His enthusiasm for it never abated.
In the meantime, I had taken my time at paying attention to some rising trout. David and I sat down on a bench and talked. He pointed out that "Rick fishes hard," and I readily agreed. Rick pieces apart a river while he fly fishes similarly as I piece apart the length of a cover-studded shoreline while throwing a Wacky rig or Chompers on an inset hook for largemouths. You undo the construction of the water, eliminating possibilities until you score at one of them, and then you continue on to another fish. It's all tied in a knot for you to untie. Dave also told me the hatch was probably correlated to the blue-winged olive dry fly pattern. He'd done his reading, and although we saw few bugs to make an even more informed guess, I knew, of course, that information in print is accurate. I had been casting a parachute Adams of about size 14 without any interest from the trout. I tied on a size 16 blue-winged olive and got nothing, but an old man in his 80s or 90s fishing near me caught a small rainbow.
"What did you catch it on?" I asked.
"Blue-winged olive, size 22, 7x!"
The three of us had got into an involved conversation with an older man when we first got to the Church Pool parking lot. He told us about 90-year-olds who take turns fishing the pool and using the bench, not able to stand for long. Since the old man who caught the rainbow alternated between the fishing and the bench, I suspected he was a regular who knew what he was doing.
Dave had a spare blue-winged olive he lent me. It looked about size 22 and might have been exactly that. I had 6x tippet to tie to my 5x leader but not 7x. Just as well. Apparently, my first three drifts got hit, but I couldn't tell, because I couldn't see the fly. A few more times I might have got hit, but finally I did see a trout poke its nose up and take right where I saw my line ended when I tried to set the hook. I never got hook grab on any of them!
Rick and Dave felt ready to move on. I wanted to return here later, but for now, we had more river to explore. Also lunch to eat. It was almost 4:00 p.m. when pulled up to the Riverton General Store about to close. They're open at 6:00 a.m., so it's a long day at that. David got a sandwich and I ate a pound of tuna fish salad. A sign on the door forbids anyone coming in with cleats, but Dave took that the opposite way than I did, as an invitation to come on inside with waders on, which we did. We didn't get chased out. The food was delicious. Rick felt breakfast bars we had brought along were enough and didn't want anything.
Afterwards, we found some water not too far below the dam that I thought looked really good. I had kept the little blue-winged olive on the line and began drifting it on a clean surface without suds, so I was able to see it. The water moved but wasn't riffled and at least four or five feet deep. On my fourth or fifth cast, I saw a trout nose up and take that fly. I set the hook, had it on, and fought the little 10-incher for a few moments before it got off.
I fished the stretch hard, but I couldn't get any further interest from trout, even though I witnessed at least half a dozen rises. Upstream, Rick had witnessed a couple get caught by others on dry flies, but the quarters were too cramped for us to go up there and take position. We drove back downstream to the Self Storage Pool.
The water flowed fast but pretty deep, so I had tied on an olive Wooly Bugger. The water under the bridge situates in such a way that a railing exists along big rocks you can step down and back up along, tight to the concrete wall, descending and ascending some 15 feet or more. I think Rick used the nymph and a wet fly. Even though I catch lots of winter trout here in New Jersey on jigs that are basically the same as Buggers, the big beadheads seemed too clumsy in CT where trout seem to turn their noses on virtually everything. They were the best I felt I could try, though. The river had been stocked with 2000 trout early in the first week of July, but even so, catching anything would have surprised me. It seems to be a feat of matching the hatches this time of year. Not all of the trout are stocked, by the way. In addition to heavy trout stockings, the river has wild ones.
One more try at the Church Pool. I insisted on it.
There we saw plenty of rises, but nothing at all came up for the size 22 blue-winged olive. An older man had taken position where I had got the hits earlier, and he did catch a rainbow about a foot long on some pattern or other. Another guy fished downstream, catching nothing. Dave and Rick had gone down there, getting hit by nothing, finally settling on the bench and watching me...until inevitably I felt it time to go.
The effect of 12 hours fishing and moving between spots on the river felt great. We would have felt more gain in catching trout, but there was no loss in catching only one between the three of us; we fished hard, never gave up, and made a full day of exploring a beautiful river, finding interest in each place we stopped at. After it was done, either Dave or Rick suggested we make it an annual event, and on that we all agreed. I got some photos I'm not posting. Two of them I'm planning on getting prints made of, one for each of my brothers.
