November continued the warm and dry weather. In fact, in many parts of southern Maine and the rest of the northeast we did not experience a rainstorm of at least one inch of rain from the first week in August to the last week of November. three and a half months without a significant rainstorm is almost impossible to believe. Obviously, rivers and streams ran extremely low in most areas with October and November stockings cancelled in many places.

Because the weather stayed so warm, fishing remained quite pleasant. I caught my last trout, a brownie, on the Little Androscoggin River in early November and then just stopped fishing local waters and put the rods away. I had been fishing constantly since April and was ready for a break. Writing assignments that had been stacking up for six months needed to be completed.

I did get to fish a private fishing club in mid-November on Lake Mitchell near Norwich, Vermont. What a magnificent old lodge and beautiful little pond. I didn’t hook up with any of the sporadically rising rainbows – the hot fly was a yellow Woolly Bugger, who knew? But still enjoyed the quiet evening.

During my Connecticut presentation jaunt, I had an afternoon to explore the Farmington River and surrounding area. I didn’t fish but watched rising browns and watched angler nymph up some trout up to twenty inches. These fish are educated and one angler I watched talked about 7x tippets and tiny Perdigon nymphs. Yikes. I also checked out “The Legends” lodge on the river and the Upcountry Sportfishing fly shop. Next year I plan to go back and catch my first Farmington brown trout. Interestingly enough, I lived in Avon, CT as a kid and fished the Farmington River frequently. Back then, the bottom release dam had just been completed and coldwater fish had not made their way down that way so all I caught on my lures and worms were sunfish, crappie, and eels. Click on link below for video of a brown trout coming to net on the Farmington

https://youtube.com/shorts/YNvc3sej9Tc?feature=share

My next presentation will be Friday, January 17th at the Flyfishing Show in Marlborough. I will be talking about how best to flyfish ponds for trout and salmon and how to find the best locations.

Finally, I had the latest productive vegetable garden I ever had with the warmth and sunshine. Even at the end of November I was picking radishes, lettuce, beets, carrots, swiss chard, brussels sprouts, cabbage, broccoli, and leeks. I used some plastic on colder nights but mostly the cause was sunny afternoons well up into the 50s and many nights above freezing. Quite ridiculous.