With all the heat we've been having these last few weeks, a Saturday morning trip to the ice-cold Swift River in Belchertown, MA was in order. The Swift is a nicely maintained tail-water fishery; big, healthy rainbows and browns are usually easy to find, but not always easy to catch.
A discharge rate of 38fps was a good sign, but my friend and I only managed one fish between the two of us. Although that one fish could certainly be "fish of the year;" my friend had his work cut out bringing in what turned out to be a heavily muscled, hard fighting rainbow of around 16-18 inches on his 3-weight.
As far as catching more fish, the fly-fishing-only (FFO) section upstream might have been a better bet. Problem was there were at least 10 cars parked at the trailhead, quite a crowd for less than a mile of river! I can imagine the famous Y-Pool was getting fished pretty hard. As it turned out we had this little section of the river to ourselves, which was just fine by me, it's prettier than the FFO section anyway:
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| The remains of a timber dam built on a stone foundation |
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| Slack water above the old dam |
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| Some company streamside |
Lovely looking water. I'm going to fish that stream soon.
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That water looks to be gin clear. Very nice!
ReplyDeleteThe Swift is a beautiful place to fish. I like it a lot, but I do prefer chasing wild fish on more remote rivers and streams. Although with the heat and lack of rain this summer, there aren't too many other places that fish well anymore.
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