Fly Fishing in Nova Scotia

All these pictures were taken in Cape Breton Nova Scotia on a recent trip to Nova Scotia this past July. Overall this had to be my most enjoyable trout fishing experience. I probably fished for around 5 hours in total and caught somewhere around 30 trout. The first 4 brookies were caught in a random creek in the Margaree watershed that is also pictured above. My dad and I drove around 5 minutes away from our hotel and found a small creek off the side of the road in the Margaree Valley. Lucky for me we found the creek in the midst of a blizzard of a sulphur hatch. I quickly hopped into the river and tied on a generic yellow mayfly. I first casted into a riffle no more 4 feet wide and 6 inches deep (you can see it at the very top of the picture). There I quickly landed a small salmon parr. I went on to catch around 20 more trout in a period of 30 minutes all on dry flies. Although they were all under about 8 inches, it was still a blast. The next day I fished in a small river somewhere on the northern coast of Cape Breton. There, despite the fact it was low water and the middle of the day, brook trout were rising. Once I got down to the river I ended up having to cut my line due to a tangle. Unfortunately I forgot my tippet in the car, but the fish didn't seem to care. I used my 4 foot 8lb test leader and tied on a mayfly dry fly and successfully caught 5 or so beautiful native brook trout. Later that day I returned to the Margaree river where I swung for salmon with no results. I then pulled out my trout rod and fished the same fly I fished the past few days and caught the salmon parr and big trout above, along with a few more smaller trout. The fish in Cape Breton were strong, aggressive, and a blast to catch. I would definitely recommend fishing here to anyone who loves brook trout. Although I didn't catch many big ones I caught many beautiful ones, and in the end, catching native trout on dry flies never gets old.

Deerfield River

 Earlier last year, sometime in June. My friends and I decided to fish the Deerfeld River. The segment of the Deerfield River pictured above was fished with little to no luck, although it was one of the most stunning parts of the river. Rolling hills can be seen in the background as well as a long riffle leading in to a pool.This section of the river was sepersyed into two channels by the shrubbery and grass hopper filled island seen above. Two of my friends and I took to turning up rocks and found plenty of stoneflies being found, so naturally we tied on a hopper dropper rig with a stonefly nymph. This did not get any bites. I then tried an olive wooly bugger, casting into an eddy behind a large rock. I ended up getting one bite there, the only bite in that section of the river. We later decided to head up to fife Brook dam where we all got many bites from both Browns and rainbows, only catching one brown. Overall it was a very difficult yet rewarding day of fishing.

East Creek Vermont Brook Trout

All of these brook trout were caught in East Creek in Pittsford Vermont. There is a small pool right off the sight of the road on Sangamon Road in Pittsford. I believe nearly all fish in this pool are stocked although I'm sure there are a few wild brookies. Overall the fish in this stream seemed to respond mostly to attractor patterns. I caught all of my fish and had all of my bites either jigging a san juan worm in the pool or stripping a black zonker and chenille streamer. There were about 15 brookies in the pool and that was about it. Further downstream there was a short riffle that held about the same amount. In that situation I just drifted the san juan worm, using a hopper dropper system.

Lake Winnipesauke Trout Trip

These are pictures of a summer trip to lake Winnipesauke. One of my friends has a house on the lake and a small boat he uses for trolling. This past august I went up there for a fishing trip. We would get up at about 5 every morning and head out to a spot on the lake off of an Island. There we set up 3 trolling rods all with different lures. Most of the luck we had was with a Wonder bread Trolling spoon and an olive and white streamer fly at around a size 8. All of the fish and bites were had at around 30-60 feet so it was a little too deep to cast a fly rod.The salmon above was caught on the first morning of the trip with the Wonder bread spoon and the lake trout was caught the second morning on the olive and white streamer

Bunny Bugger Fly Tying Tutorial

Basic tutorial on how to tie the bunny bugger, an overall easy fly to tie and very effective for not only Massachusetts trout streams but bass and pickerel fishing as well.

Winthrop Bass

This large mouth bass was caught on a Lake Winthrop on a canoe in late august, it was caught just off of a steep drop off at the base of a large flat near the center of the lake, I was stripping a size 4 orange woolly bugger which had been successful the whole summer with pickerel, crappie and especially bass. The bass in this lake were being hooked on small lures and flies all throughout the summer and into the fall, when I tried switching to a larger size fly the fish just weren't as aggressive as they were with the smaller flies. This was both good and bad considering I got plenty of bites but nearly half of them were sunfish, I felt the hard hit that is unique to the sunfish in this lake and got my hopes up but when you pull out your 15th sunfish of the day,bass begin to seem like a rarity. Luckily enough I was able to get this big guy towards the end of the day.

Solid day on the Swift

This trout was caught at the Swift river probably around last April. Due to the really harsh winter Massachusetts got, trout stocking was delayed. When my friend and I arrived at the Swift we actually found very few trout, it seemed as though there was 10 suckers for every rainbow. The first place we stopped was almost right beneath the route nine bridge. Once we got down to the river we saw a solid pod of fish maybe around 20 or so. Most of them were suckers but there were a few holdover rainbows in the mix. At the time my friend was fishing dry flies and nymphs while I was just drifting an egg. At one point after not getting any bites I decided to cast near a fallen tree across the river, hoping there might be something in there...and there was, the rainbow pictured below. That trout put up a solid fight, twisting my tippet all around some sticks near the fallen tree. Luckily my friend was there and was able to net the fish before it snapped off. Later I switched to a brown wooly bugger and was able to catch a sucker in the same spot. My friend was able to land a sucker on an egg pattern down at the Y-pool. Towards the end of the day we decided to head down to the pipe where we both used Walt's worm patterns in size 16 both tied with dark brown dubbing and mine with a jig hook. I was able to land another rainbow trout in the shallow water right beneath the pipe. All in all it was a good day with some good fish.