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Does anyone flyfish for trout anymore?

4K views 24 replies 17 participants last post by  Dave17 
#1 ·
I like stripers too but.......

I've had great flyfishing this summer for trout here in Central Ma. on the Millers and the Swift but you would think I'm the only one out there. What about the rest of the country? The "Salt" is great but rising browns and finicky 'bows must be generating some memories and some discussion. The browns on my home river, the Millers, have outgrown the C&R boundries where they were first planted and now provide evening action all over the place. I'd love to hear about some "destinations", Montana, the Great Lakes, those Pa. Limestones or any place else. The first time I cast a fly for stripers I caught over 30 fish. Lots of fun BUT give me a brown rising for a BWO and you can have the salt. I won't need it!

Millerbrown
 
#2 ·
Millerbrown,

I fish for trout on occasion. Here in New Hampshire where I live trout fishing is pretty crappy most days. Too many put & take rivers with lots of fishermen who keep fish IMHO. Once the water warms up mid July it is pretty much over as far as I am concerned. But upper Connecticut is good all year long & I make several trips up there if I can. I grew up fishing the small streams of western Massachusetts & Vermont and enjoy catching brookies on light tackle as much as the next guy, Bows & Browns too for that matter!. But ocean & salt water tributaries have their own magic, at least for me.

Tonight I went bass fishing in my kayak for the first time this year. I even caught a few.
 
#4 ·
I grew up in Pennsylvania (left it when I was 25) and fished many of its storied trout waters. Then I moved to Montana in 1979 and spent 12 wonderful years fishing its legenday trout waters. I moved to Western Washington in 1991 and since I have several steelhead rivers from 1 mile to 4 hours away, that is what I now fish for nearly exclusively all year round. But if I had good stream or river trout fishing within 60 miles, I'd fish for them.

Alas, half decent trout fishing is over 2 hours away, which means I don't fish for them because the steelhead fishing is a lot closer. As much as I like steelhead fishing, I do miss Montana trout fishing at times though.
 
#5 ·
I do

Hi Miller
I fish the Millers, Deerfield, and sometime the Swift. I agree that trout fishing has it allure. As do Smallmouths, Shad, Pike, and others. I think that many fisherman think of Trout fishing as a spring/fall put and take situation and seek other pastures during the summer. Means more space for us.
Larry
 
#6 ·
I too love to fish for trout but the salt has taken up most of my time. I'm thinking of getting back into it again. I know what you mean about the BWO's and browns. Some of the salt experts would get skunked by these fish.
Try the Farmington in Ct. The fish hold up there all year round and are very fussy. They have seen many flies .
The best trout fishing that I've had was on the Missouri River in Mt. Huge Spring Creek with large rainbows sipping tiny size 24 BWO's great stuff.
FishHawk
 
#7 ·
Good to see the responses. At least I get the impression that if you had decent trout waters nearbye you would fish them. I'm lucky to have decent water all within an hour of home and that's why I gave up (almost) the Salt a few years back. Flytyer - I'll lump steelhead in with trout fishing. It's the same ballpark, just major league players. Good for you.

If anyone wants some tips on the Millers or the Swift just log in.

Millerbrown
 
#8 ·
MillerBrown,

I grew up in Williamstown Ma and one of my favorite places to fish to this day is the Deerfield from the Bear Swamp dam to Rt 2. I have not fished it in ten years or more. But I do drive down & have a look on occasion when I am over that away. Maybe I should take this post as a good Omen & head over that away this fall and renew my love affair.
 
#9 ·
i live on the south shore. hence stripers. truth be told i prefer trout fishing-and by a long shot. the problem is we don't have many fishable streams in the area and i don't know the millers or some of the other central mass streams. i've fished the swift quite a number of times but the crowds can be daunting. if ever you think you'd like to trade a day of education on the millers for a day in the blitz here in the boston harbor area, drop me a p.m.
 
#10 ·
FishHawk,

Glad to hear you got to fish MT's Missouri for its wonderful, free rising rainbows. I spent 6 wonderful years living in Cascade, MT and only had a 2 block walk to the river, which I did almost every evening after getting home from work. Since you found out first hand how good it is, you know how I got spoiled and how a piece of flat water looks like it is a riffle once the hatch, spinner fall, or caddis egg-laying flight is on. Most days when a good hatch or caddis egg-laying flight was on, it was normal to catch 12 trout/hour.

As a result, I just can't bring myself to drive 2.5 hours to WA's Yakima for trout fishing that is nowhere near as good as the Missouri, Big Hole, Big Horn, Madison, Beaverhead, Clark Fork, Poindexter Slough, and some spring creeks on public land that will go nameless on a national board, and the Yakima is considered to be the best trout river in WA state.
 
#11 ·
An interesting phenomenon took place in that the resurgence of the striped bass population happened to roughly correspond with the emergence of the internet as a means to share information. Thanks to that phenomenon, thousands of new flyfishermen went straight to striper fishing without first experiencing the more traditional forms of flyfishing that many of us grew up with.
You post has set some wheels turning in my head. I live plenty close enough to the rivers you mention to take advantage of the fishing. One of the thing that turned me off those fisheries in the past was the crowd, both in quantity and quality. It never occured to me that the saltwater flyfishing craze would syphon off much of that crowd.
This revelation comes at a time when I have become somewhat disillusioned with the saltwater scene. Not surprisingly, the crowd around the salty venues has taken some of the fun out of it for me.
Since I left the trout rivers for the salt about 10 years before the main body of the current crowd, it is only fitting that I relenquish the salt to them and return to my roots while they are still focused on the stripers. In another ten years when there aren't enough stripers left to support the hoards, they'll all probably invade the trout rivers.
Luckily, I have been putting great effort into expanding my warmwater flyfishing. By expanding my horizens maybe I can keep one jump ahead of the crowd.

I have several questions on the fisheries you mentioned. In no particular order;
How is the water levels these days? Are all the good rivers still manipulated by the utility companies? Do the weekend rafting/tubing/canoing lobbies still have more pull than fishermen?
Related to water level, how much of the rivers are more like warmwater fisheries at this time of year? I love smallmouth bass when I choose to target them but I tend to get annoyed when I stalk a rising fish only to have my perfectly presented dryfly sucked under by a bluegill or 8 inch bass.
How are the hatches? Are they consistent? Good numbers?
What is the trout population like? Mostly freshly stocked truck-bows? Any holdovers? Natural reproduction?
How bad is the baitfishing crowd?
I cut my flyfishing teeth in the Catskills back in the 70s and that's a tough act to follow. I'd like to think I'm 20 minutes from waters that can compare to the Beaverkill or the Espopus, but I'm not that optimistic. Still, it would be a nice change of pace to give the old 5 weight some time.
Problem I have now is, how the heck am I gonna tie size 24 flies with my eye sight in the shape it's in?:roll:
 
#12 ·
Farmington

The Farmington is one of the best trout streams near the Boston Metro area. It's got it all. However, there are crowds there especially on opening day then they vanish. If you do a little walking you can have most of the river to yourself.
The one good thing about the Farmington is that the local river association watches it like a hawk and addresses some of the problems on the river.
It's best to go durning the week .
I too am getting turned off by all the crowds and hype of the saltwater scene.
Something about a trout rising to a fly is special. There seems to be less of how big a fish you caught than if you finally did catch the fish. Trout fishermen will know what I mean.
Fall is a great time to be on the river.
FishHawk
 
#13 ·
Yes, I trout fish, but only when I'm really in the mood to do so. I mainly fish for pike, smallmouth, and saltwater species. My fishing time is at a premium these days, so when I actually have a slot of time to fish I really prefer to do what's my favorite, and trout usually aren't at the top of the list.

Perhaps all of my years trout fishing in Maine burned me out a bit too.
 
#14 ·
Glad to see that my trout fishing post got a number of responses. To those who have talked about the Deerfield in western Ma. - things have been great The Harrison brothers at Harrisonanglers.com have been guiding with great success this summer. The Millers has held up well and September is right around the corner. It also holds pike and LM Bass. I'll tell you where to go if you are interested.

Flyfishing for trout is my first passion. Neal - I'll take you up on your offer. This could be fun!

Millerbrown
 
#15 ·
The problem is access to good streams for fly-fishing for trout. Where I live right now there are a lot of small trout streams nearby, which are really more suited to spinning than to flyfishing. The overhanging trees don't give you any room to cast a fly in most pools. The few sections of water that are open, i.e., have public access and pass through pastureland or something similar so that you can cast, get pounded in the spring and don't hold many fish right now. If I drive an hour to an hour and a half, I can get into some nice waters in the southern Adirondacks for flycasting for trout, but I don't have the time or the $$$ to make the drive all summer long. So I have fun with Mr. Bass and Mr. Bluegill mostly, because they are close to home and I don't have brush swatting me in the face and tangling my fly line when I try to cast. Would I trade my favorite basspond for the Swift or Miller's River? In a heartbeat. But it doesn't work that way.

Another thing that works against my flyfishing for trout is that I prefer to have a little elbow room when I fish. If I can have a pond or stream to myself, or myself and my fishing buddy, so much the better. Now, when I lived in Colorado, I used to hike these little mountain streams that saw very little traffic at all during the year, and pull out decent-sized brookies, rainbows, and cutts. I rarely saw another person, which is part of the experience for me. I like to take a break every now and then, look at the mountains, or the animals, and fish at a leisurely pace. Contrast that with what trout fishing is like here on a good stream. There are times on the best waters when people are literally shoulder to shoulder. That's not my cup of tea.

One thing I regret is that in Colorado I never really got into flyfishing for trout. I came to fly-fishing late in life, and spent many years first spinning, then baitcasting. I caught my Colorado trout on a spinning rod. What a waste. Oh well, maybe I'll get another shot someday.
 
#16 ·
Its interesting to hear about the increase in Stripers possibly leading to people abandoning trout streams in favor of saltwater. In the Cape Cod area the trout streams were in horrible shape about 10 years ago (from what I've learned), and people favoring Stripers makes alot of sense. I've been trying to learn about some of the spots down here for trout and it seems that there are a fair number of projects to restore the sea-run populations, some of them have been going on for quite a while and seem to have had alot of success. This fall will be my first real foray into Trout fishing, so we'll see how that goes... Just finding the information has been a bit of a challenge though, not much online. I've had to resort to the Stone-Age technique of actually talking to people!:chuckle:
 
#17 ·
#18 ·
Wish I lived closer to the Miller, is there still action this time of year?
I'm in Saugus, the Trout fishing around here this time of year is non-existent. My river, the Ipswich, levels are so low, I don't think trout can live in non oxygenated water. But if anyone knows of a place to go, please do tell.
I'm planning to go try the Ando in NH the first week of October.
 
#19 ·
Forelle said:
Wish I lived closer to the Miller, is there still action this time of year?
Miller's and the rest of the MA rivers will be heating up any time now, though water temps are unusually high right now. I'd give it a couple more weeks of low overnight temps before the trout fishing gets really good.
 
#22 ·
The Millers is perfect right now. The rains have brought the river up to fishable levels and the water temps are holding in the 60's. Lots of surface action in the late afternoon and evenings. BTW, nice tiger!!

Also, I will be coming out with a guide (hopefully) to the Millers this Fall/Winter. Lots of pages, photos, directions and stories. Easy price too, since this is more of a lobor of love then a profit center for me.

Millerbrown
 
#23 ·
Fishing for Trout, does anyone still do it?

In my neck of the woods, we are still very keen on fishing for trout. I guess its a disease, that medicine hasn't found a cure for.

There is nothing better than a clear, crisp morning at 6.00am, early October, at the Sand Pool on the Tongariro, having it all to yourself, with the real possibility (occasionally probability) of a 6lb rainbow trout (or 2) taking fly.

I have never really been that keen on the saltwater fishing.

Cheers

Ian
 
#24 ·
Ian,

Good to hear from a trout addict. It's Fall up here and the rivers are low and gin clear. My Millers has been giving up it's browns only to the best far-and-far-off presentations. Saltwater means a two hour drive and with so many obligations it's easy and so nice to have a river full of rising browns just a few minutes from home. I hope that my last cast in this life is to a rising autumn brown!!

P.S. I plan a couple of million casts before that last cast.

Millerbrown
 
#25 ·
The rebirth of a trout angler

I cut my teeth over twenty years ago with the 5 weight fishing the Yantic and Shetucket in CT. It was a great learning experience and I owe a lot of what I know on the water now, to those early years.

Unfortunately that type of fishing became monotonous after a while. I got tired of muted hatchery fish, lazy fights and missing pectoral fins. The lure of having a fly destroyed and actually seeing your backing became too much for a young teenager and I gravitated to the salt. That obsession with the salt has grown exponentially and now includes regular trips for Bones, Permit, Tarpon, Reds, Specs, Stripers, Tunoids and a number of other species. The salt will always be my first love.

With that said, I must admit that the quieter waters are beginning to call me back. Living in Atlanta I've come to accept and enjoy that my "out the door" fishing is now rivers and streams. A great management program, wild reproduction and the prospects of big fish haven't hurt matters either.

This past summer I was fortunate enough to get a couple of days on the water in Colorado. That was the final push I needed to get back into Trout. Sight fishing for the Rainbow below (I can't believe the colors on these wild fish) took two and a half hours and nearly thirty flies. When he finally took the fight was amazing and the sense of self satisfaction was enough to guarantee that I'll be allocating more of my time to Trout.

The salt will always come first but I'm starting to rediscover the beauty, challenge and tranquility of trout fishing again:smokin: .

Good thread,
Dave
 

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