I snuck out of work a bit early last night and took a ride up to the Farmington.
For those of you that have not had the opportunity to fish this river, you are missing a great fishery. It is a tailwater and the water runs cool through most of the summer. With the amount of rain we have had they have been releasing a nice flow and the river remains a very fishable height, not to high or low. It offers diversity of water covering many different types of fishing to satisfy your style du Jour. It has a great Trout management area, which holds an abundance of sizeable trout. On the down side it is not normally a place to find solitude and tends to be quite noisy from car traffic based on where you are fishing. However, if you can block out some of the periferal issues you can find some outstanding fishing opportunities there, pretty much year round.
The hatch last night seemed very limited with some sulfurs and Isonychia around (at least that's what I think they were.
I started fishing the head of a run with some nymphs and was fortunate enough to hook a beautiful rainbow on a pheasent tail nymph. One of the most vicious strikes I've had in quite some time, the line ripped from my hand. The fish ran hard upstream in a pretty strong current. It was a great fight and added a couple arial displays before being brought to net and left me very happy that I had made the trip.
I switched over to a large Stimulator to see I could entice something to teh top. I hadn't seen many rises and thought I'd go big and give it some movement . I fished a slack water seam across a pretty strong currrent and enticed a decent size brown to snatch the fly. I had been twitching the fly about quite a bit and the fish swirled and grabbed the fly like it was afraid it would not be long on the water much longer.
Later in the evening I switched over to an Isonychia emerger and fished the tail of a little pool above the run I started. I noticed a very splashy rise and worked my casts down trying to locate the fish still using the emerger and again giving it a little movement at the end, to make it appear as though it was getting ready to fly away, just as the fly reached the end of the drift and made it's last little curl I had another very aggresive take. I was standing high enough that I could see the flash in the water and could tell it was a good size trout. I put as much pressure on the fish as possible, putting quite a bend in my 2 weight. I've found the 2 weight to be an acceptable size rod on most trout. It gives me confidene that I can really pressure the fish and still be comfortable that I will not break the tippet (6x at the time). After a bit of give and take I manged to get teh fish above me and brought him back down to the net. It was a very healty brown trout somewhere in the 16 - 18 inch range (I don't often measure fish because I try to keep them in the water (net) and release them as quickly as possible). I would classify this as a good fish on the Farmington from a size perspective but you can find, and often do bigger.
As dark approached, I worked my way back down stream through a large flat there were about 8 gentlemen spreadout thoughout this area. I didn't muscle my way in just watched for a while, heard the singing of a few drags on what I believe to be a couple big boys, watched the full moon come up over the river with a beautiful orange glow, finished my cigar and headed home anticipating the next time I'll be back on the Farmnington. Give it a try, you may not want to leave.
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