Accessing the Current River below Montauk Trout Park I, Al Harper, and two other FATC members found a large number of trout enjoying the freedom they’ve gained (and enduring a fight for survival too) since they were washed out of their riverside hatchery raising vats during historic flooding the first week of November.
I met Will Black and his son Drew at Baptist Camp Access three miles downriver from Montauk January 25. The park and hatchery are still undergoing major repairs and renovations. The terrain around Baptist and the Tan Vat access reveals the effects of extremely powerful floodwaters that surged through the river valley and left behind probably more displaced trout than have ever swam in the river at the same time before.
I had wade-fished Tan Vat in December, just four weeks after the flooding, and found high numbers of trout already adapting well and competing vigorously for the river’s natural forage — and for flys I offered as well. At that timeframe trout were striking streamers more aggressively than I had ever encountered. Now at Baptist Camp and on downriver, trout are still numerous but it seemed to me they are more discriminating in their feeding. Will, Drew and I initially hiked a couple of miles downriver to ensure a little elbow room with other anglers preparing to fish at about the same time. The plan was to fish our way back up stream to Baptist which, while cleared and operational, still featured mounds of sand and other signs of debris. A concrete outhouse situated high on a riverbank, for instance, somehow withstood the brunt of the powerful rushing water and is still functioning. Picnic tables once in the area, however, are now further downriver stranded on new sandbars. A truly massive fallen tree with its rootball attached that once seemed to be an immovable landmark was pushed well downstream too.
The great fishing enjoyed the last couple of months in the Current leaves one wondering just how many fish inadvertently ended up in the river. A Montauk hatchery contact I spoke with a couple of days after our excursion said while they had been working to ascertain just how many bows escaped their holding vats when the flood came, they weren’t yet in a position to release a number. He went on to say one could certainly call the loss “significant”. There have been efforts to rescue some of the lost fish through shocking and netting but apparently that has occurred mostly in the park and with so much urgent work required in the park itself to prepare for opening day, trout rescue hasn’t been a high priority. And, he added, a number of escapees smaller than what biologists would normally want to introduce to the river are at risk now that they share the river with larger predatory trout.
While brown trout are being caught below the park boundaries too, these were raised at the Sheppard of the Hills hatchery in Branson and therefore their numbers weren’t increased as a result of the November flood. When I commented that fish now in the river seemed hungry the hatchery worker said he wasn’t surprised because they’ve gone from a reliable and easy daily diet of 2,000 ponds of fish food to whatever they can now track down on their own. He also said determining how many fish a particular stretch of any river can comfortably support is both art and science. So it would appear that miles of the upper Current will be experiencing unprecedented fish-per-mile counts for weeks to come.
All that certainly doesn’t diminish the fishing accomplishments of us three intrepid anglers in late January of course! As mentioned, the surviving trout have now had weeks to acclimate in their new environment. They’ve spread out in the cold river and seem to me to have become more selective in what they eat. And, of course, fishing pressure has increased as the word has gotten out. It was very satisfying to still be able to entice hard hitting fish out of their deep holding spots with fast moving streamers like Meat Whistles and leeches augmented with bright orange beads. Will and Drew did well with Perdigons, and by tight lining and Euro-nymphing flys like pheasant tails and blowtorches too. Drew got a 20” bow swinging a soft hackle and Will got an 18” bow nymphing as well.
After noticing surface activity in the early afternoon not far down from Baptist Access, I experimented with dry flys until I successfully “matched the hatch” (a fly with green thorax seemed to be the key) and I had a wonderful time catching about twenty that rose to the fly. But again, while numerous and hungry, trout would refuse even the right dry fly unless it was presented with care. A soggy dry fly or one with an unnatural, forced drift resulting from careless line handling was usually refused.
While I was doing well with delicate dry flys on a light tippet, two spin cast fisherman took up a position just down from me. We had a friendly exchange but the spin fishermen became perplexed by not getting strikes on their heavier lures from trout looking for tiny bugs of a certain color presented just so and they soon departed. While I wish every type of angler good luck, I have to admit I savored this small victory for fly fishers everywhere and whistled an upbeat tune all the way back to the parking lot a little later.
P.S. some photos accompanying this report were provided by Will Black. The nicer bows held up by disembodied arms were caught by him and Drew.