The Farmington River in Connecticut is less than a two hour drive from both New York City and Boston.  Its a tailwater filled with riffles and runs and pools along its path.  We were incredibly fortunate to have Zach St. Amand of Fishing with Zach as our guide for the day.

He warned us about difficulties wading the Farmington due to its larger rocks and boulders which are very slippery.  The term we’re familiar with is “greased bowling balls”.  He was right but kept us in spots that were more easily accessible with our wading staffs providing great balance.  Oh… and at times, Zach providing the great balance to both Barb and I.  He kept us both from taking a swim a few times.

The first spot we fished we netted around 30 beautiful rainbows.  Barb actually had TWO “doubles”.  For our non-flyfishing friends, this means that on one cast, with two flies on her line, Barb caught two fish.  Doing this once is extremely rare.  Doing it twice in the same day is ridiculous!   We’ll share the pic when we do our Connecticut highlights video gallery later on.

This area was mostly stocked fish but sizable bows for sure.  At one point, Zach asked if we might want to eat one of our catches since these were stocked.  Barb and I had talked about this during our trip given we are “catch and release” fishers but if the opportunity presented itself and the timing was right, we’d do it.  It was and we did.  More later about dinner.

Next we went up into a section of the river that is a TMA (Trout Management Area) and fished more difficult water for more difficult to catch fish.  We both had success here but not at the rate we had to start the day.  That would have been impossible!  However, the fish we caught were beautiful fish and I was able to snare one during a Hendrickson’s hatch on a dry fly.  SO FUN!!!

As we were walking along the river, Zach pointed out some of the plants we were passing by including Skunk Cabbage (don’t eat) and Fiddlefern (can eat).  But what got us excited was that ramps were in abundance in one area.  We’d heard of ramps back in Richwood, WV which bills itself as the “Ramp Capital” of the world.  So of course, we picked some wild ramps…. which leads to dinner.  We had fresh rainbow trout caught by Barb, fried red potatoes with wild ramps and garlic bread for dinner…. all cooked over an open fire at our campsite.

Barb and I both agreed that this was a very special day we won’t ever forget.  Thanks Zach!!!

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