Connecticut River Report: February 1

The unpredictability of this winter weather has confused our snowmobiling guests at the lodge most of all, but it has had little effect on our resident trout and salmon. 

Another 40 degree warm up meant another chance to harass the fish below Murphy Dam again – that’s three times in the last four weeks – extremely rare around these parts. To change it up a bit, I tried a nymph rig using streamers first – a more heavily weighted gray soft hackle streamer followed by a lighter smelt imitation, nymphed on sink tip line.  My reasoning was that with the higher flows (500 CFS today), some smelt would stray too close to the dam and get sucked in to it and down the river … where lots of hungry lunkers would be waiting.  Yup, sounds pretty weird, but what the hell – you only go around once.

My initial thoughts were confirmed, as there were several dead smelt in the water downstream of the dam – looking good! However, about an hour later, my theory was ultimately proved incorrect, so I switched back to the old standby – a soft hackle streamer with two split shot a foot above, stripped slowly. It worked on a large salmon – definitely a fatty that had been helping himself to the buffet table, repeatedly.

There’s fish there folks – watch the weather and flows and if you see an opening you should come up. It feels great to cast a line, even in the winter.

Scoreboard to catch a fish on the Connecticut River each month in 2012:  January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October