Last weekend I had a trip back to Boston with extra time to kill before my flight, so I packed my gear and decided to fish a couple of old haunts for a few hours.   It was incredibly rainy nearly all day, but that didn’t stop a few trout from hitting flies.  I had originally hoped with the warm weather that I’d have a chance to fish dries, but the steady downpour was keeping the fish down.  I used a tightline technique mostly for the Swift, and used a few methods with success on the Millers.

For the first stop, I visited the Swift.  I didn’t see the numbers of fish that you typically see, which is unusual for mid-May.  I actually don’t mind when it seems devoid of fish, because I know that’s not actually the case.  It takes more patience than usual, but you can nearly always find a few trout hiding in stretches that don’t see many anglers.  The trout that stay out in the open on the Swift are very saavy, and often won’t take a fly if they can see you.  I started out below route 9, and caught a very feisty rainbow just beneath a set of riffles.  It was a good size and looked as though it had been in the river for a while.  It took a size 20 version of one of my “Old Reliables”.

After a couple hours, I decided to venture over to the Millers river to try my luck.  It’s only about a 30 minute drive from the area I was fishing on the Swift, so it’s not too bad.  Surprisingly, there were already a few anglers at the Millers.  In my experience, I’m usually the only one out there, so it was a nice change of pace.   Despite the rain, everyone was in good spirits and seemed to enjoy being out on the water.  I’m a very solitary fisherman, but it’s nice when there’s a little conversation and good company.  I’m happy to swap flies or tell other people what’s working for me.

I started out my day on the millers by fishing the tail end of riffles.  I very quickly hooked into what I presume was a stocker rainbow, because it was wildly flopping in the water. It turned out to be a good strategy, because it was able to negotiate itself an early release! I swung my flies out a little further and after several drifts, I had another nice hit.  This one didn’t have the negotiating tactics and ended up in my net.  I was happy to see that it was a healthy brown.

The browns blend in so well at the Millers, and as soon as it left my hand; it disappeared.   I had a few more hits while swinging flies from the riffles into a pool, but wasn’t able to keep these fish on.  If one were to fish a streamer here, they probably would have had a lot of success.  A few of the hits were coming after the swing and on a short retrieve back upstream.  By this point, I had discovered a hole in my waders, and it was raining even harder, so I called it a day.  It was great to be back on a few streams that I have come to learn about during my 7 years in Boston, and I’m sure I’ll be back occasionally.