When we arrived at the Housatonic State Park in western Connecticut last night it looked like this week’s heavy rains in the northeast had taken its toll on this world-class river.  Fortunately Connecticut is not limited to one legitimate trophy trout fishery to choose from.  Just 40 minutes to the east is a tailwater river known as the Farmington that would be clear and with the heavy rains the flows would be ideal for a drift float.  Ironically, eight months ago I was literally at the point of tossing a coin to figure out how to choose between these two rivers.  This morning the choice was easy.

Our guide, Rob Nicholas of Housatonic Anglers was more than happy to vector over to the Farmington as he knew this was an awesome river as well – for fishing and for history as the Farmington is one of the six National Wild & Scenic Riverways in New England.

On our drive to the Farmington Rob thought he would take the route that used the famous Cornwall covered bridge.  I always wanted to see this famous covered bridge.  I just didn’t want to get stuck inside of it.  Why do I say this?  As Taylor was fetching the camera I yelled back to Taylor “How high is our RV?”  The sign at the bridge’s entrance read 10’ 11”.  Taylor yelled out we’re 10’ 11”.  Hmmm – a dilemma.  Long story short, we made it, just barely – even backed up some traffic in the process.  For those who might be worried we were very careful as Taylor shimmied up the ladder to make sure there was no danger.  For the historically minded people, I truly was more concerned for the bridge than my RV.

We launched Rob’s drift boat around 8:30am and were quickly off on a six mile float.  Let’s cut to the chase.  Taylor beat me 27 to 13 and closed the gap significantly.  He is now only 17 fish behind me and has won 7 straight States in a row with only 6 States remaining.

Dad (343 fish); Taylor (326 fish) with a Grand Total of 668 fish to date.

Before today our two biggest trout on a river was 19” and 19.5”, both from the Madison River in Montana.  Taylor not only beat that record by catching a beautiful 20” Brown trout – he caught two of them that size.  He also caught a 17” just for good measure.  He was on fire today.  In total we caught 20 Browns, 5 Rainbows, and 15 Atlantic Salmon for the four hour outing.  WOW!!  The Farmington is on the map as far as I’m concerned and can stand toe-to-toe with nearly any trout river in America. 

By 1pm we were back in our RV and headed for Rhode Island where a storm is brewing.  Tonight we’re supposed to get 2” of rain – tomorrow could be dicey.