Back Lake Hex Hatch Update: 6/30

The Hexagenia hatch here at Back Lake continues on, despite the changing weather that we’ve had. As evidenced by the number of hexes on our boat house this morning, you’d think that it was quite a night last night. Think again …

We were worried that rain moving in and out from 4 – 7 PM yesterday would mess up the hatch last night, but in the first half hour of fishing last night, your devoted blogger caught and released a small bass and a whopper (18″+??) of a rainbow trout. These two fish were caught on a slowly retrieved Woodduck Heron, to cruising fish (in the case of the trout).

Just when it looked like it would be a great night of hex hatch action, the rising and cruising fish suddenly became a lot harder to come by for about an hour. There were a few fish taking bugs under the surface, but I wasn’t seeing any hexes … at all.

This continued until about 9:00 PM, when the light was nearly gone entirely. That’s when the hexes started coming off … in droves. So, the good news is that the hatch was heavy last night. The bad news is that it all happened pretty late in the evening, so really the best action came in a span of about twenty minutes, just before it went pitch dark.

My advice is to bring out hex patterns that are big enough to see, and make sure you take along your headlamp too. More unsettled weather is on the way for this evening, but tomorrow night could be good …

Connecticut River Update

The Trophy Stretch continues to fish well for our guests. Nymph rigs of various fly combinations are working well right now – stones (Blacks, Yellows), caddis (Caddis Pupa, RS2) and mayflies (BWO, Sulphurs) are all working. Egg patterns and Worm patterns have also been bagging fish too. Bring it all and bring lots of tippet for those inevitable snags.

The flow in the Trophy remains at 153 CFS, but the flows have varied somewhat in the other sections. The “No Kill” stretch between Second Lake and First Lake is currently at 113 CFS, and it seems as though that increase (up from 88 CFS a week ago) has led to some salmon in that stretch of the river.

Murphy Dam at Lake Francis is back down in the neighborhood of 500 CFS, as it had been at 706 CFS the last two days. This is once again a pretty good flow for fishing, but remember to wade carefully if you’re out there …

Lake Francis and Second Connecticut Lake are full as of right now and First Lake is nearly full. No low water problems like last year – plenty of H2O in the system this summer.

Nice weather is coming this week which should help calm the river flows down.