It's Been a While...

 

Small, but my favorite fish of the season nonetheless

Hey! It's been a long time! I'm not sure if anyone reads blogs anymore or if anyone will actually check this. I didn't update this blog at all last season. I didn't guide last season, either, save for one trip that had been rescheduled from the year before. I think I fished the Naugatuck all of four times in 2019, though I did hook and lose one of the hardest fighting broodstock salmon I've encountered. I think I was a bit burned out last year. Also, I had tons of work in the music field, so I was plenty busy. 

Enter 2020...very little work after mid-March, buckling under the stress of distance learning with a second grader, a wife who was super stressed out having to teach music online...and less time for fishing than ever. When students returned to school in September, things began to normalize a bit. There was still very little work for a performing musician, but I had plenty of time to fish all of a sudden. In light of the circumstances, guiding was back on in 2020. In all, it was a pretty decent season for both myself and my clients, though it was certainly not a normal season. 

Here are a few things I noticed...First of all, there were fewer salmon around this year and most were a lot smaller than average compared to recent years. I caught my first one and thought, "What I've heard is true...these things are puny." Then I landed one about 5# immediately afterwards and thought, "That's more like it. That first one must have been an outlier." Nope. It was no outlier. Most were puny. That 5# fish was the largest I'd catch all fall though, luckily for me, I had clients who caught larger fish on guided trips. 

The other strange thing was that, as a whole, they were more difficult to catch this season. There was only one day I saw them behaving recklessly. Usually, I see that happen a few times per year. Personally, I still did fine and caught enough fish to be satisfied, but I didn't land more than two in a day on any day. Every season, I have at least one four or five salmon day, and sometimes more/multiple days like that. But that didn't happen this year. I didn't hook one salmon, all season long, in my two most reliable spots. Or, what used to be my most reliable spots, I should say. 

I don't really have an explanation...at least one which can be proven. I think the fact that we were fishing over fewer fish had something to do with it. The only other thing I can think of is, since I am used to targeting larger fish, maybe these little guys starting finding lies more suitable for smaller fish? I have caught a lot of salmon in a run with some relatively heavy water (for the Naugatuck). It was a salmon ghost town there this year. Maybe it was too much water for these little guys? 

I don't know. In any event, I managed to adjust pretty quickly and still found enough fish for a successful season. I spent more time at pools I have avoided the past few years, so it was nice to get reacquainted with old water. I hooked a fish on a Sunray Shadow, fished at light speed. It's been a few seasons since I've had that happen, despite it being a staple in my arsenal for so long. I caught a couple fish on a classic salmon flies, namely the William Rufus and the Popham. That's always exciting for me. The fly of the year, for myself, my clients and one of my best buddies, was the Ally's Shrimp/Conehead Ally's tube fly. One of those two did the absolute bulk of the heavy lifting for us this season. Other good flies were the Golden Shrimp tube fly, the L.T. Special and, as always, the gold bodied Willie Gunn. 

My favorite fish of all was the one pictured above, however. I caught it in my favorite pool. It's far from my most productive pool. It actually might be one of my least productive pools, but it will always be my favorite. The water moves at just the right speed and has a everything a salmon could want. But, for some reason, they seem to move in and out of that pool. They don't stay very long. 

For some reason, salmon are susceptible to Buck Bugs when they find themselves in this pool. So, the fly for my first run through was a no brainer...Green Machine, sz. 4. About midway down the run, in fairly deep water, I saw a salmon come up to the surface and roll on the fly. Now, in recent years, I have seen this typical salmon behavior less and less. They either want the fly or they don't. They either take it or they don't. I remember epic chess matches with salmon, getting them to rise over and over, only to hook them or to bore them into giving up. But now, it's a lot more cut and dry, which makes me sad. My friends and I agree, they have been behaving less and less like salmon every year for the past four or five years. But this time, the fish wanted to behave as it should. So, I rested the fish for two or three minutes. I cast my Green Machine to the same spot...whammo! The fish nailed it. There was no prolonged chess match,  and the fish was small and easily landed, but I was still satisfied with the events of that hookup. 

I fished on Christmas Eve with my buddy Val. He got a nice fish in my favorite pool. I got my smallest salmon of the season immediately after. The river is blown out now. I might get out one more time in 2020 or I might be done until next fall. We'll see. I think I've actually seen the best of it this year, but it's not like I have any gigs to play, so I might as well fish as long as the weather cooperates. And, if it doesn't, I have fly orders to keep me busy...and some time to write, so maybe I will post some more here soon enough. If anyone reads this, I hope you had a happy holiday season and have a happy and fruitful new year! 

-Ben 

Conehead Ally's Shrimp was top dog this season
(fished with a single hook, of course)