Farmington, a lesson learned, and who says you can't..........

Yesterday was another afternoon-evening outing on the Farmington. It was one of those rare mid summer days where the air was cool and a good breeze held the flying insects at bay. When I arrived I was surprised to see so many anglers, especially during the week. As I surveyed the water I saw a few rises but the bugs on the water were scarce.

I cast for awhile, moving along the river and managed to pick up a few small browns and a juvenile salmon. I changed flies with the thought of perhaps this will bring them to hand. Well that did not come to pass, instead what happened was I had the hookup but the fish did not want to have its picture taken.

I climbed out of the river and moved to another spot that has been good to me in past trips, and again it was good to me. Several wild brookies took the dries and soft hackles.

This guy was so beautiful.

As I began to move upstream a bit I ran into none other then Mr. "TROUT1". Pete was also fishing the river and we talked of are various losses of the day as well as other subjects. He told me that Mark was fishing much further up river and was planning on staying til dark. It was then that Pete informed me that another angler was in my sweet spot. With that I said I was going to move down and fish a place I haven't fish in some time. In our conversation Pete made mention of fishing with 4 or 5x tippet, I usually use 6x. We left and moved on. Good to see you again Pete.

The sun was retracting and there were lots of shadows on the river. This section is deep and wide and careful wading is required. It is also home to some big fish. I soon found out why Pete uses heavy tippet. My 4th or 5th cast I hooked a monster brown. I had him subdued, so I thought. He ran down stream and broke that tippet like it was nothing. This same movie was played again.

Some beauty streamside.

Finally I was able to bring a nice brown to hand.

I know that fishing this stretch of river can produce a "Big" brown. And that I should use one of those large streamers that offer these guys a meat and potatoes dinner they like. But I had an Adams parachute on and I let it fly. Big fish will eat little flies, won't they?

This beautiful Farmy brown hit the size 14 Adams in the eddy behind a big boulder. I can't say for certain but it looks wild to me.

As I was taking this photo, I stepped into a hole that brought the water up over my hip boots. It was a long slosshy walk back to the car.

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