Fished the Swift on Christmas Day. This time of year tailwater trout is about the only fly fishing available without getting on an airplane, except maybe some unfrozen ponds here in eastern Mass and down on the Cape (something I’d really like to try one of these days!). My Christmas day tradition for the last 5 yrs or so has been to go duck hunting but because there’s no Sunday hunting in Mass I went duck hunting Saturday instead and went fishing on Christmas this year.
It was a beautiful day weather-wise. A friend met me on the river and we spent most of the day in the section between Route 9 and the Y-pool. It was nice to have the river mostly to ourselves and we took turns with one of us spotting fish and calling the set while the other one fished. It was a lot of fun even though the fish were largely uninterested – though we did get a few nice rainbows. This type of fishing has always been really enjoyable for me under the right conditions and I think the Swift lends itself well to this strategy. Most of the fish we caught were on small orange beads but I did land the best fish of the day on one of the Perdigon flies that Jo tied up for me for a little Christmas present. Thanks again Jo! Also, interesting was that one of the female rainbows I landed was super ripe spewing eggs all over as I unhooked her. It’s a bit odd to find rainbows spawning in late December but hatchery strain fish and stable tailwater conditions may contribute to this slightly odd timing.
All in all a good day. Things certainly slow down and options become limited as winter progresses but there’s always good fishing to be had.
Did anyone else get out fishing over the holidays?
Not sure why the pictures aren't showing up? My computer is down so I'm posting from my phone. I'll see if I can remedy this tomorrow…
Fixed the images
Caviar on the rocks!
Wow, that fish was loaded with eggs. Amazing how those rainbows do everything but actually spawn.
Mike
Extraordinary pics!
This is awesome – great post! I caught a pretty large bow on Monday that was dropping eggs. Another angler next to me caught a milting rainbow, makes me wonder whether or not some of those fingerling bows are actually escapees or stream born.
Alex, that is yet to b determined. I'd err on he side of caution though and say that most of the smaller (less than stocking size) rainbows you see are simply hatchery escapees or smaller individuals accidentally mixed in with the stockers put out. There could be some limited natural reproduction although it hasn't been documented in the Swift and it's very likely an extremely tiny contribution to the adult population…although, as I mentioned, the data are not there yet to say one way or the other.