Listen To Chris Stewart



Chris Stewart taking a break

Recently, I finally had the chance to go fishing with Chris Stewart of TenkaraBum fame.  Chris and I having been trying to coordinate a fishing trip together for virtually the entire trout season.  I generally fish alone but earlier this year I missed a few great opportunities to fish with some fellow Tenkara anglers who were visiting the east coast but I was determined to get at least one trip in before the end of the year with Chris. 



West Branch of the Croton

So after a few e-mails back and forth the next thing I knew he was introducing me the West Branch of the Croton at the northern end of Westchester County  north of NYC.  After some introductions and some gear set up we were off "leap-frogging" one another upstream from Drewville Road.  I don't know what fly Chris started off with but he had some success from the start landing maybe a half dozen wild browns.  I chose to begin the day with one of my Bubble Kebari's.  I hit the jackpot right off the bat hooking up with a number of "rock-fish" and "leaf-fish."  Then I promptly lost several of my flies (I hate losing flies!).



One of the larger offending "rock-fish" of the day

As far as brown trout go....I had exactly two bites for the first hour.  After a while Chris and I met up and took a quick break.  After some chit-chat he handed me one of his killer bugs, which I politely declined.  I then reached into my bag and showed him my fly box which had a number of them already in it.  I learned a while back from Chris and Midgeman that having one of these flies was a good idea.  So when a noted Tenkara angler speaks I listened to him and promptly tied a killer bug on.  Almost immediately I was getting hits here and there as we moved upstream.  I would love to say we both proceeded to land fish after fish but that wasn't the case.  It was kind of a strange day for both of us.  Both of us had numerous hook-ups and were hauling fish in but inexplicably they would be lost at the last second. It's as he said, our hooks seemed to be not just barb-less but hook-less!  I did manage to bring one brown about 7-8" to hand.

I don't take a picture of every single fish I catch but I like to include a few in a blog post because, hey, we all like fish-porn.  Even the one fish I got to hold slipped from my fingers before I could get off a picture.  Overall it was very nice day spent stream side in a beautiful woodland setting with a fellow Tenkara angler.  Hopefully it will not take an entire trout season to get together again.