As the old saying goes:  ” If you don’t like the weather in New England, wait a minute ! ” Well, it’s not like that literally but close to it. 2015 and the start of 2016 weather has been crazy to say the least. We had March like weather in February, May like weather in March, and now February like weather in April ! Ugghhh…

I traveled to the Farmington today despite the cold temperature and blustery wind to get my fill of fishing before I start my 3 day rotation and the start of fishing season. I went to a patch of water in the Burlington section of the river to see if the Hendrickson hatch would come off in this weather. I anticipated that it would- very sparsely- even though the water  and air temps were down ( once it starts, it comes off regardless of the weather but, weather does affect how it progresses ). The hatch started recently due to the prolonged warm winter and early spring. However, it has been very slow, sporadic, and not lasting very long each day. Today some came off around 3 pm and lasted for about 45 minutes. In addition it them, midges and winter caddis were about – also sparsely.

I borrowed a friend’s Scott Radian to try it out. I chose a 6 weight in case I needed to CHUCK streamers, but my intent was to  use nymphs, wets, and possibly dries if any fish were on top. I don’t like to carry multiple rods with me so I like to use a rod that can do it all. I normally fish Orvis Helios 2 series and/or ADG Titanium rods-with my first choice usually being an ADG.

I dabbled with a bit of everything regarding tactics but the most productive was running a cast of three wets spaced 30 inches apart  and deep in the softer seams and worked up slowly through the water column using a long leader and a thin running line to combat the heavy winds today. I didn’t exactly put huge numbers up- I didn’t expect it with our current weather- but I did get enough to put my mind to rest and savor another day on the Farmington completely by myself ! I know that won’t happen again any time soon after Saturday. That being said, I wish everyone a successful opening day and fishing season.

By the way, as you can see from the pictures, some of the trout ( browns ) were holdovers  and the rest were recent stockies straight out of tank # 2 at some point during the past week or so….A fish is a fish though !