October 11, 1992
Housatonic River, Cornwall Bridge, CT
At 3:00pm Rob Constable dropped me off on his way to a Kent School Function. I went down a path behind the liquor store on the Cornwall Bridge side of the bridge. Entered the water in the backyard of a yellow house on the rivers edge. Saw one other fisherman with his son. Rapids ahead below the bridge. Water level rose rapidly as is normal for the Housy. Walked up above the bridge and as the feeder stream saw a major hatch occurring with 30 – 40 trout feeding voraciously. After 10 minutes of frantic adrenilized casting one or two fish examined the light cahill. Switched to a size 14 olive and had a fish pin it on the bottom, missed the strike. Caught one 10 inch rainbow on the olive (shook free) and another 12 inch minutes later. Constable was waiting for me above so I was out of the water at 4:30. Back to Elka to watch the Presidential debates. Went via Great Barrington. I believe the pool I fished was “push em up pool” – will check a guide book (later learned it is Furnace Brook Pool – Dec. 28 1993).
Housatonic River, Cornwall Bridge, CT
At 3:00pm Rob Constable dropped me off on his way to a Kent School Function. I went down a path behind the liquor store on the Cornwall Bridge side of the bridge. Entered the water in the backyard of a yellow house on the rivers edge. Saw one other fisherman with his son. Rapids ahead below the bridge. Water level rose rapidly as is normal for the Housy. Walked up above the bridge and as the feeder stream saw a major hatch occurring with 30 – 40 trout feeding voraciously. After 10 minutes of frantic adrenilized casting one or two fish examined the light cahill. Switched to a size 14 olive and had a fish pin it on the bottom, missed the strike. Caught one 10 inch rainbow on the olive (shook free) and another 12 inch minutes later. Constable was waiting for me above so I was out of the water at 4:30. Back to Elka to watch the Presidential debates. Went via Great Barrington. I believe the pool I fished was “push em up pool” – will check a guide book (later learned it is Furnace Brook Pool – Dec. 28 1993).
Here is a case where I actually learned something about my technique and corrected my tactics. The light cahill fly which I fished because it was easy to see on the water was not yielding any strikes, the olive hatch, also known as Blue Winged Olives is a common fall hatch in most of the Eastern United States. By changing flies I actually changed the situation, but any decent fisherman would have been able to match such a basic hatch without even looking at the rocks nearby.
Blue Winged Olives are the kinds of mayflies that you can observe by just looking at the water, you can watch them hatching and drying their wings, this is the stage where trout will go gaga grabbing them off the surface while the wings are drying out. This was the equivalent of a ½ off sale sign in a department store – you’d have to be a fool to miss it.
Still, there was a lesson -- If your tactics aren’t working, look at what you are doing, acknowledge it, break it down, and then change them. At the very worst you’ll fail again, but at least you’ll fail in a completely new and different way.
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