Rare moments of glory on the Housatonic River

The other morning I was out on the Housatonic River (flowing at about 850 cubic feet per second) bright and early at 7 a.m. on the dot. Since it takes me about two hours to wake up these days, I find this incredibly impressive.

I went to the Elms on the River Road side, so the sun, if it came out at all, would be behind me. (This is worth remembering. I have seen anglers doing some serious squinting at 9 a.m. from the Route 7 side, with the sun blasting in right at them. River Road a.m., Route 7 p.m.)

It stayed mostly cloudy pretty much all day, so my first thought was olives. I detest olives, and all itty bitty flies. I isolate them in a special box, derisively labeled “specks.”

I can’t see them to tie them on, and I dislike superfine tippet because I can’t see it either. Plus it curls up the moment it comes off the spool. I fumble with it, curse, some, and try again. It promptly curls up, and so the long day wears on.

On the theory that the trout were eating Cahills the night before and would still be likely to respond, I started with a big size 12 Light Cahill dry with a winged wet fly of the same pattern, but smaller at size 16, tied on a 30 inch piece of 5X nylon attached directly to the bend of the hook.

In about an hour I had caught and released eight trout — six browns and two rainbows — plus a couple of junior small mouth. The takes were about evenly spread between the dry and the wet.

Then it stopped. I tried a variety of things, getting a bump here and there but no results. Fish were still feeding in the film, and some were coming up from the depths to grab something.

That meant it was time for my annual battle with specks.

I dug out the speck box, and picked a green one, not too tiny at size 18, added a piece of 5X nylon to the leader, and on the first cast a brown trout boiled up out of a little bit of soft water between rocks and grabbed it.

I’m not sure who was more surprised, me or the brown. The fish had clearly not read the hatchery memo that said, “If you get caught, dash one way, then the other, then submit meekly. They will take your picture and put you back, and then lie about your size.”

Later on, toward 10 a.m., I worked the riffles with a team of three wet flies, switching them around until I found a combination that seemed to work for everybody. (Light Cahill, partridge and green, black spider on the bottom.)

I also had a couple of good trout and one really good small mouth come up and grab a small size 16 Deer Hair Sedge (a sparsely tied caddis dry fly) out of the slack water. I was using a Tenkara rod for this, and it was a lot of fun.

In the evening I wasn’t up for the serious water, and instead played around in the always weird area between the power house in Falls Village and the falls, where I caught innumerable junior smallies, bluegill and rock bass.

It’s great to be able to fish the Housatonic on foot again after months and months of flows well over 1,000 cfs.

Get your licks in now, because on June 15 the thermal refuge regulations kick in, meaning that many of the choicest spots are off limits until Sept. 15.