Father’s Day 2021

My dad’s friends wanted me to take them fishing for a long time Unfortunately, conflicting schedules and life got in the way. Luckily, Fathers’ Day weekend presented a good opportunity so I quickly contacted Phil Nogee and Cam Chioffi of Harrison Anglers and booked a float.

Over two months went by and the anticipation built. Finally when the day arrived, we met Phil and Cam and headed to the Deerfield. Typical for a Saturday, the river was inundated with tubers, rafters, and kayakers. We even saw a few other guide boats including Dan Harrison who wasted little time in putting his clients on fish.

Phil took my dad and I ahead while Cam stayed behind to give my dad’s friends a casting lesson. We started by tightlining off the boat. After a quick fly change, it wasn’t long before we started getting takes. The Contact II performed admirably and I was able to easily pump the breaks on many fish. At one spot, we stopped for lunch and I took a few casts from shore. Within a few minutes, I felt a strong take and soon admired a pretty wild brown. Cam stepped into my spot and immediately hooked another one. He’s truly one the best guides in New England and as a former member of the USA Youth Fly Fishing Team, he has learned from some of the best in the game. Watching him catch that fish was truly worth the price of admission. The Force is strong with this one.

After lunch, the flows started slowly dropping and the fishing heated up. We continued catching some nice rainbows. At one spot, one of my dad’s friends caught an absolute unit of a wild brown. His other friend took to tightlining quickly and caught almost as many fish as I did. I decided to throw big terrestrials for a bit, but only managed a couple refusals unfortunately. We fished until the low flows necessitated a quick dash to the takeout. While shuttling back to the dam, we we saw a black bear run across the road.

 

Afterwards, we stopped at Berkshire Pizza for dinner. While we recounted the day’s highlights, Phil for a call from Dan Harrison about an insane march brown hatch right before dark. Fish were apparently leaping completely out of the water for his client’s flies. Although I was slightly disappointed that we called it too soon, I could not have asked for a better way to spend Fathers’ Day.

 

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