New stream and a favorite fly

A friend of mine works for MassWildlife, and in talking about streams that have been sampled for cold water fish, he noted one surprisingly close to me, that, embarrassingly, I'd passed many times but never thought to fish or explore.

This is the time of year to check it out.  It's a short stream running into a reservoir, and a good chunk of it's short run is through a pretty nasty overgrown meadow/swamp.  After my quick recon mission Saturday, I can see that there are three times of year to fish this stream: mid-late fall, winter and early spring.  

It's sort of fishable in summer, but cross referencing mental images of the area in full bloom with the foliage types I found... ooph, not going to be enjoyable come summer.

That said, it's a great looking little stream.  Mostly 2-6 feet wide.  gravel bottom.  A bit of weed in places, lots of woody debris making deep scoured out holes and cover AND lots of great undercut banks.

First view of the stream.  A nice run.

Here is where the stream shifts from woods into that swampy overgrown area.

Hemlocks - always seem to be around wild char streams!  The side I was on had a bit of an undercut and good depth - maybe a foot.

Many of the deadfall - and some standing dead spruce in the area were just choked with amazing lichen.  Super pretty - my pic does not do it justice.

After my walk on the stream - and skunk number two of the year :) - I hung with the kiddo's and we all made a home brew Pizza for dinner.  Always good to see 4 year olds build anything, but especially something they get to eat.  Ha!  Once they went down, I pondered flies that I had to restock.  With school starting up again, my vice time is likely to get short here for a while...

Then a fly hit me squarely - the Telico nymph.  If you have never used this little Appalachian creation, you should.  I've tied simpler versions using peacock colored wire vs peacock for the rib, and using nymph skin for the back vs peacock, but either I dont have as much confidence or pleasure in fishing them... or they dont work as well as the original.  Regardless, this fly is awesome.

Decades (ouch) ago, a friend introduced me to this fly when we were fishing a local pond that was home to some wild (it's a centuries old stone dam on a stream which has wild trout) and stocked trout. He was fishing the fly and catching, and gave me one and I started to catch fish as well.

Since I've always carried them, and fished them.  They have caught trout, small mouths, all kinds of sunfish and chubs for me.  Plus, the fairly dense body, sinks pretty well even in unweighted versions.  I've tied it in bead head for larger sizes and that's worked too.  In the end, it's just a great little fly worth adding to your arsenal.

This is a little one, #16 standard nymph hook (Tiemco).  I most often fish 12-16, but carry a few long ones - #10's or 12's but on 2-3X long curved nymph hooks (think heavy stimulator hook - but any longer hook would work).  I have not fished a "big" one on a small stream, but on a few larger local rivers the big ones work great.

Have a super week!
Will