Boiling Waters.

I have been looking for an opportunity to get out and fish the evening hatch on the Farmington for a few weeks now. Evenings are sometimes tough as I feel a little guilty coming home from traveling all day only to change clothes and head out to the river while my better half feeds the kids and gets them to bed that evening.

I finally got the better of my guilt and headed out last night for several glorious hours of dry fly action. I drove around the river, at length, surveying many of the popular dry fly areas and almost all were fairly crowded. I ended up going to some faster water to nymph for a little bit in hopes that some areas would clear out a bit. Landed a couple nice browns on the far seams of some fast runs and than began to drive around in search of some glassy waters.

I found an area that was relatively unoccupied as the only other angler was at the top of the pool fishing the end of the fast waters. At this point, it's around 7pm and the rises were beginning to show but still, somewhat sporadic. Well, about 7:30, someone flipped the switch and all bets were off. Now remember, I have not been out yet this year during a hatch and the amount of rising fish had me on sensory overload. Once I settled down and began casting properly, the takes started to come with a some regularity. This area was a perfect classroom for me to practice my dry casting as there is plenty of room for a good back cast and rising fish to target. I missed the first few takes as I worked to get my timing down however, once everything clicked, even I was amazed. I stopped counting after a dozen fish and estimate that it might have been twice that amount when all was said and done.

I landed both browns and rainbows on a wide variety of flies: sz 16 EH Caddis, sz 14 Crystal Caddis, Sulphurs and March Browns. Some bugs coming down the river were so large I felt like I was at a regatta. I may have to battle my guilt a little more often and try to get out a few more nights. The drive home was just as amazing as it was like driving through a snow storm...the bugs were so heavy.

Enjoy some pictures of the outing...

fell to a big cased caddis nymph

another nymphed before a move to dries

EH Caddis victim

feeding with the Rainbows

last of the night as I could barely see the fly