Sunday, May 26, 2013

Patience & the Connetquot

The Connetquot

The Connetquot, historically, is one of Long Island's trio of premier trout streams. The Carman's River and the Nissequogue River being the other parts of the trio.  All three streams are spring fed creeks.  The Connetquot was the last one remaining on my "to fish" list until this morning.  With the long weekend here I thought I would give it a try.  The Connetquot is similar to many English chalk streams in the fact that it uses a beat system.  An angler reserves a beat for a specified time and has that section of the river to himself or herself.  In years past getting a good beat was difficult.  The Connetquot has it's own hatchery, or least had a working one until several years ago.  Due to an outbreak of trout infectious pancreatic necrosis it was closed and the numbers of anglers and trout dropped off.  However, this is still fish to be had if one wants to put in the time.

Typical stretch of water upstream of the hatchery
I started at beat 27 hoping to catch some native brookies but didn't have a whole lot of luck.  I wanted to use my TUSA 11' Iwana but it was too cramped for that so I went my 9' Shimano Kozuka. With no fish to be seen anywhere and no other anglers in sight I figured I would just work my way back downstream.  Fishing a stream like this can be challenging with it's dense mats of aquatic vegetation but there were other things to divert my attention.

A little muskrat having breakfast with his back to me.


There was quite a bit of wildlife out and about including muskrats, ducks, ospreys, and deer.  However, I was interested in trout. After an entire morning of not so much as a single rise I was just about ready to call it  a day when I finally caught a glimpse of something and figured what could I lose by a few more casts. So I tied on a brown soft-hackled yarn body fly and hid behind the only tree available and began to cast.  Three casts later I had a hit and then a jumper.  It was a handsome brown trout that put on a beautiful aerial display by jumping clear of the water three times.

15" Connetqout brown trout


I less than a minute I erased an entire mornings frustration by just exercising a little patience.  Though the Connetquot may not have provided the action seen in former glory days this trip proved to be well worth it and desreves another trip.

This respectable brown was caught just in front of the tree to the left in the picture.
Brown soft-hackled yarn body fly (originally tied by Chris "TenkaraBum" Stewart)

4 comments:

  1. I have fond memories of Connetquot... or Disneyland as we used to call it in the early 2000's. Getting a decent beat was always a struggle - or you had to get up god knows when to secure a good spot in the line. Looks like you fished upstream of the hatchery which is very challenging water due to all the bushes, trees and water vegetation. I have had some really good days just below the hatchery (beat 16?), with a nice river bend. I also caught a monster of a trout at the bottom of the pond where it empties. I assume you still can't wade in it, right?

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    1. Getting a beat yesterday was no problem.......I was the only angler so I fished the entire stream above the hatchery. I caught this guy just above the hatchery. You can wade in hippers only below the hatchery. The good news there is talk of opening the hatchery again next year. Who knows, maybe I'll have the chance to go to Disney too.

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  2. Nice brown Kiwi. I had heard good things about the Connetquot when the hatchery was open, too bad the fishery has declined since then!

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  3. Thanks Mark....hopefully it will return to it's former when they open the hatchery.

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