Sunday, August 19, 2012

Dog Days 2012

Now is the time of year when fly-rodders in Northwest Connecticut must either trek to the Farmington or forget about fishing for trout.

August is bass season — smallmouth in the Housatonic, and largemouth in lakes and ponds.

Also bluegill, crappie and perch.

It's not bad, floating around in a pontoon boat chucking gigantic flies at the dumb brutes.

But it only goes so far. I'd gladly sacrifice summer weather for waders, a sweater and trout.

Luckily, the heat wave snapped, and it's getting down in the 50s at night. We're getting there.


Pontoon boat — powered by oars and/or swim fins


Largemouth bass, Lower Lake, Mt. Riga, Conn. This is a typical specimen. They get bigger.


The colorful and silly bluegill (aka sunfish)


A larger largemouth. A largemouth bass is basically a swimming mouth.


The perch. They don't get much bigger around here. They travel in swarms.


The crappie, which looks like the hideous combination of a bass and a bluegill. People out west and in the south like to pronounce it "croppie," but not me.


Yours truly, in delightful LL Bean fishing shirt, with nylon and polyester goodness. The most comfortable one of its kind I've found. Discontinued, of course.

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