Bucket o' fry on the river

Usually by mid-June I have shifted from tributariessuch as the Blackberry River, Macedonia Brook and Furnace Brook to the Housatonic itself.

But with the wettest May I can recall in the books, and June shaping up to be pretty soggy as well, the Hous has not been at a wading-friendly level in a while.

I’m not saying it can’t be done at 1000 cfs and above. I’m just saying I’m not going to do it.

So I’ve been in the Blackberry a lot. It’s convenient when I only have a couple of hours, and it’s been stocked three times this spring.

And while truck trout are somewhat easier to fool than their wild counterparts, the terrain of the Blackberry -- both in and around the water -- is pretty tricky.

So taken as a whole it’s a suitably challenging prospect.

One fine afternoon I was messing around just upstream of the bridge at Beckley Furnace, trying out a couple of rods I had forgotten about: a Cabelas CGR fiberglass 7.5 foot 5 or 6 weight, and a 6’10” Tenkara rod from Zen Tenkara.

The CGR line of fiberglass rods are a great value in my opinion. I have half a dozen of them, in line weights 2-8. None are longer than 7.5 feet. My favorite is the 6.5 foot 4 weight, an ideal tool for flicking flies at brook trout in close quarters.

(A quick check of the Cabelas website shows they currently only have the 7 foot 5 weight available.)

They list at $79.95, but I got most of mine when they were 50% off.

Which is just insane.

The Zen Tenkara rod is unusual. In the fixed-line world, a 10-footer is a shorty. Under seven feet is rare.

And Karin Miller, the courteous and popular proprietor of Zen Tenkara, specializes in big fish rods. They are sturdy and they are long.

So this model, the Hachi, stands out from the rest of the line.

Both the CGR, which I had rigged with a double tapered #5 line, and the Hachi, which had about 7 feet of #3 fluorocarbon level line plus tippet, are full flex rods. “Wiggly,” for the layman.

I was playing around with a dry-dropper rig on the fly rod and two wet flies and/or small weighted nymphs on the Hachi, and having a good time playing the 12-14 inch fish, mostly rainbows, when I beheld a couple of young men approaching with buckets.

“Dang,” I said. Buckets are never a good sign.

Well, almost never. In this case the bucket brigade was from the state fisheries department in the form of biologist Drew Ransom and his able assistant Matt Devine.

The buckets contained hundreds of brown trout fry, about six months old, that were essentially superfluous to the state hatchery’s requirements.

Hundreds of brown trout fry were planted in the Blackberry River.Patrick L. Sullivan

Ransom said the idea was to plant them in the Blackberry, from Beckley Furnace down to Route 7, and see what happens.

I suggested they would get eaten up pronto by the resident trout and the scientists agreed that was a likely scenario for most of the fry.

But a few might escape that fate and establish themselves.

Devine, eyeing a mini Wooly Bugger in a silvery-grey color I had on my line, opined that the fly would do an admirable job imitating the fry.

I agreed but I didn’t test the theory, at least not then and there. Too close to chumming.

The water temperature that day was 63 degrees and rising, not surprising since it was the middle of a two-day heat wave with air temps cracking 90.

A few days later, and after some additional rain, the water temp had dropped to about 60, but how long that will last is anyone’s guess.

Once water temperatures hit 68 it is time to stop fishing for trout. They have trouble breathing at 68 and above, and even if perfect catch and release practices are followed, they will be severely stressed by the time they are caught, played, netted, admired, had their photograph taken, and returned to the water. They probably won’t make it.

So I’m guessing we’re right about at the end of the practical trout season on the Blackberry until fall, when the water temps will be down again and the state’s stocking trucks return.

If you do go I recommend a dawn raid. The water temperature will be its lowest point and there won’t be anyone else around except fanatics like me.

And I am easily avoided. In fact, like a bear,I will go out of my way to avoid you.