Covered Bridges & Bronzebacks (Fishing the HOUSATONIC River)

[@Butcher-xk9wc]

Great video. Beard game is strong!!

[@atama17]

I’m in Norwalk and this makes me want to go check this out

[@TwinCitiesOutdoors]

Great content dude! You'll be growing fast with stuff like this!

[@ConnecticutAngler]

Twin Cities Outdoors hey thanks so much!

[@davelester3357]

Grew up fishing this and the Farmington among many others.....great video. Tight lines!

[@ConnecticutAngler]

Thanks so much!

[@davelester3357]

Connecticut Angler subscribed...keep up the awesome videos, going to watch your salmon river one next. I spent many many weekends 4 wheeling, camping and fishing that river...ways my home away from home..😂

[@dipster14]

Yes, Two Roads is a great brewery lol they are my go to beer

[@jdogg661420]

nice ones.

[@paulhowes5094]

How bad is the pollution there now? You should've seen the smallie I hooked fishing for stripers on the Ct. River in South Hadley Mass below the dam. It hit a 4 1/2oz pencil popper just as I was lifting it out of the water. My guess is it was 8-9 pounds!!!! I've caught several 4-5 pounders but never anything close to that 1

[@christopherwood2290]

I used to fish for smallies in the Bulls Bridge canal. Now it has no trespassing signs. Pisses me off to no end.

[@DavidWencilOutdoors]

Great drone footage. Nice video. Just subbed.

[@ConnecticutAngler]

Thanks so much. Drones offer so many possibilities for unique perspectives!

[@thomasgarvey5425]

Hi.. great video and subscribed. I have a friend in New Haven I visit a couple times a year. Would like to know if you can recommend a section of this river we can float with a canoe.. without dragging bottom for half a day or so? Target species preferably trout.. with spinning gear. Thanks...

[@ConnecticutAngler]

I’m not particularly familiar with the Housatonic, in general. And I’m even less familiar with places that would be particularly conducive to canoeing. Sorry I can’t be of much help.

[@sheppeyfishtales]

That's well edited. Bet it took some time. Enjoyed it. Sub from across the pond 👍🎣🇬🇧

[@shayn4220]

Like 15 min from my house great fishing on housy

[@oliverb5947]

Have you ever fished Furnace Brook? It is right in Cornwall! You should really check it out this summer!

[@kylelud6272]

Nice video! Curious, in your experience how big do the smallies get in the housy?

[@ConnecticutAngler]

Kyle Lud I haven’t generally fished the Housatonic all that often, so I can’t really say from any extensive experience how big they get. I can tell you that the largest I’ve ever caught in the general area where this video was filmed was 2 lbs and I was pretty happy with that bronzeback. I’ve certainly heard of larger specimens being caught, with stories going as high as 5 lbs. I entirely believe 3s and even the odd 4s can be had there; when folks start talking about 5s, I start questioning who was eyeballing the weight. Who knows, though?

[@jspeenz7087]

I've pulled out some 🐖's 3 plus lbs in kent near bulls Bridge. Top water. Also some Northern too.

[@christopherwood2290]

@@jspeenz7087 I used to catch some big Pike around Gaylordesville a few years back.

[@christopherwood2290]

@@jspeenz7087 Where are the good access points nowadays around Bulls Bridge? I used to fish the Connecticut Light & Power canals but now they are posted. That ticks me off to no end.

[@jspeenz7087]

@@christopherwood2290 I walk from bulls Bridge downriver about 1 mile to the Ten Mile river. Fish all the pools I can get too.

[@oliverb5947]

Can you please do more smallmouth vids in the future?

[@ConnecticutAngler]

I don’t know how many other videos from the channel you’ve watched, but you might want to check out the two other smallmouth fishing vids I released in 2020: one filmed on stillwater up in Maine and the other filmed on the Central Naugatuck River in Western CT. For sure, small mouths will make it into a vid or two in 2021, though I typically don’t target them until the weather warms up in July, August and September. Thanks for watching!

[@oliverb5947]

@@ConnecticutAngler Since 2 days ago when I found your channel, I have been watching all your vids!! The two other smallie vids were some of the first I watched! I started spin fishing last summer, and a few weeks ago I got a fly rod!! Can’t wait to try it out this spring! I live in NY, around 1 hour from Hartford, CT, and so I will definitely be checking out the Husatonic out soon!

[@henrybraus4432]

what equipment did you use? because I fish here often and I can never seem to catch anything

[@ConnecticutAngler]

Spinning gear with streamer flies. Most of the specific streamers are either mentioned or shown in the vid.

[@woodydavis8287]

I tie a wicked nymph that can fool the oldest browns on a 3x long size 6. Not weighted. Pulled in a multitude of smallies in lower reaches of trout waters.

[@AnglingWithAlex]

Are the trout dying due to the water warming up ?

[@ConnecticutAngler]

I can't really say for certain, but that would be my guess. The Housatonic does have areas that can support holdovers quite well (up to 23 fish/acre, according to state research), but they are scattered throughout the river and spots in between have absolutely abysmal holdover rates (less than one trout per acre). I imagine that stockers hunker down in certain pools as temps start to rise in late spring and early summer, only to find those pools dwindling and heating up by mid-summer with nothing but a quarter-mile of hot shallows to contend with if they were to try moving up or downstream to seek refuge. Their fate is probably sealed, in that case.

[@realisticfsxpilot2215]

you sure that's not a trout management area. ive fished that section around before and last time I checked its a fly fishing only part

[@marcatwood6067]

Isn't the area between the covered bridge and the next bridge below it, completely fly fishing? Rods, reels, single hook flys.

[@ConnecticutAngler]

Nope. The FFO section you're thinking of runs just 3 miles upstream from the Rt 4 bridge, which leaves about a 1.5-mile section below the covered bridge which is open to both types of gear. It's laid out in the Angler's Guide if you're ever curious to know about exactly where those FFO sections are.

[@realisticfsxpilot2215]

Hey if you want to catch a lot of trout, go to either the East Aspetuck river (Wild class 3) or Kent Falls (Trout Park). their both very good for catching all types of trout

[@bigron8346]

That's what happens to trout when people don't wet their hands before handling them!!!!

[@ConnecticutAngler]

Certainly, that is an example of what could potentially happen to trout that are not handled with wet hands. However, in the case of those trout, it could very likely just be the result of extreme heat stress. We know that a great deal of stocked trout that thrive between April and June begin to die off as we approach midsummer. We don’t usually see them when that begins to happen, but I would wager that no small portion end up looking like that... weakened, overheated, stressed, with an immune system that’s failing and allowing infection to set in, which weakens and stresses them further in a fatal cycle. When we talk about stockers not having a high holdover rate, we don’t generally give much thought to what it looks like when they perish, y’know? But it’s probably not a pleasant death.

[@dougcassin677]

You people up in the NY- CT- NJ Tri- State region sure love giving that middle finger, but does it really need to be in a fishing video?

[@ConnecticutAngler]

That sort of stuff very rarely makes it into my videos. In fact, I think this is the only instance. I personally got a chuckle out of it, which is why it made the cut, though I did blur it out.

[@christopherwood2290]

It is dumb. Something a teenager thinks is funny.

[@woodydavis8287]

That one finger salute leads to bigger and better things in these parts. He thinks no one up there will do anything to him. They probably won't. Respect others and respect yourself. BTW, kill the sick trout. Do you carry a thermometer? They might be great stressed.

[@woodydavis8287]

Heat stressed.