A couple hours on the Quinapoxet

I had a few hours to spare so I ran up to the Quinapoxet for a look around. Because of the relatively short amount of time available I headed to the area near Trout Brook where I’ve been before and am familiar with. I had the river to myself. The water was substantially lower than last time I’d been there about a month ago, but that is to be expected. The lower water really highlighted the multitude of good trout lies in this section of the river. There are few, what I think of as “traditional” or “textbook”,  pools in this stretch but the stream is full of good deep current seams, pocket water, and current breaks from all the large boulders present.

I played around with a streamer for a little while but I mostly just observed, hoping to intercept a hatch that would draw the fish up top. Bugs were everywhere! Huge brown drakes (spinners and duns), although few in number, were conspicuous in their labored flight. Medium-sized sulphur duns, smallish blue-wing olive duns, at least two types of caddis, and clouds of countless, infinitesimal midges. Despite the proliferation of airborne insects the trout were not feeding on the surface…and continued to ignore my half-hearted attempts at fooling them with a streamer. I suppose I might have switched to nymph rig and picked up a few subsurface but I kept waiting for the fish to appear. They never did. In two different spots I crept up on a pod of haphazardly rising fish only to determine that they were fallfish (or shiners, I couldn’t tell from my vantage point) when I got close enough. I’m not sure what the water temperature was so it’s probable that the trout were elsewhere. Either way it was an interesting evening and I’m hoping to run into some more good hatches in the coming weeks – with the exception that trout will be joining the party as well.

I think the next couple evenings will be devoted to scouting for some good carp spots considering these guys should now be in the postspawn feeding mode and a bit easier to target. I also plan on making my first foray to saltwater this weekend if everything works out.

How has everyone else been doing fishing? Running into any good hatches? Any interesting fish landed, fresh or salt?       

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8 thoughts on “A couple hours on the Quinapoxet

  1. That's a fun section of the quinnie. I like the run just above the confluence with trout brook… though that corner can be good too (It gets a lot of pressure so I rarely fish the confluence).

    I really hope they blow the dam at the reservoir as has been rumored the last few years – allowing clear flow from the quinnie into the res. I like that for the possibility of salmon and browns going up in the fall… but also the thought of the quinnie gaining a small mouth population (possibly).

    Glad you had a fun night on the water!

  2. I'd like to explore a bit more throughout that river since it's so close to me. As far as I've heard there is ongoing efforts to remove that dam. If that happens you very well might get your wish. I'd imagine that trout and landlocked salmon would eventually make use of the new spawning habitat available in the river although I don't know for sure how the habitat (e.g. appropriate substrate in areas of groundwater upwelling, etc.) in the Quinapoxet stacks up against that found in the Stillwater. It would be cool to have another stream with big lake-run fish to target during the fall though.

  3. Another good section to try is where River street ends at Harris street. Fish from the bridge and make your way downstream to the rail trail bridge..

    1. I'll have to try that area. The more I learn about the Quinnie it seems as though the temperatures can reach unsuitable levels in many parts of the river so trout become concentrated near areas of groundwater influx or colder tributaries – although that is more than likely true for most (if not all) of our freestone streams in the state.

  4. Had a good few hours downstream from there on Tuesday – nice brown & a brookie on dries but only 1 brookie on a nymph in one of the deep pools. Very different than last month!

  5. Greetings: Was fly fishing the Quinnie on Saturday 06/24/17. Started down near the intersection of Turkey Hill Rd and River Street and slowly worked my way upstream towards I-190. Pulled a small wild Brown on a small stone fly nymph. However that was about it for the day :(.

    However, something quite unusual happened though. I got caught in a torrential downpour. As the rain began to let up, the river turned the color of redish brownish mud. The turbidity was so intense I could not see my hand two inches into the water. Being from Jersey, it reminded me of the Raritan River (a god-awful septic and muddy excuse of a river). This suggests to me, that there must be some serious erosion taking place somewhere upriver from where I was. Does anyone know where the erosion is coming from?

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