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)